Once upon a time, porn was rare. Hard core porn was available only in sleazy peep shows and “adult” movie theaters and bookstores. “Stars” were mostly anonymous. A few, like Linda Lovelace became household names
Today, the Internet is awash in porn, much of it free. There are apparently untold thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of women out there willing to advertise for the whole world their talents in delivering sexual favors, much of it close-ups of blowjobs.
These women are easily recognizable. They presumably have families, friends, employers, employees and if they are not in a relationship, will be so in the future and will probably have children at some point. It seems that the probability of someday being recognized by someone they know is quite high. “Hey, I saw your mother in a porn flick, HOT!”
So the question arises. Why are these women willing to do this? And for what? I can imagine doing anything for a million dollars, but how can staring in a free porn movie be financially rewarding. I must be missing something here.
What ARE these women doing?
Do any Straight Dopers know women who have done this?
First logical answer that comes to mind: there’s people who don’t consider appearing in a sex video a particularly big stigma.
Second thing is that the probability of being recognized is not that high. People interested in amateur material are only a segment of the audience, and you can very well “hide” in between the sheer quantity.
There was an “ask the” porn director (or producer ?) thread a while back. Do a search on that - he had some good insights into the questions you’re asking.
On a radio show, sports talk am radio to be precise, they interviewed a guy who approached women and offered them money to ‘star’ in his movies. He said business was quite lucrative.
Some people have facial tattoos. Apparently they believe the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. Probably the same here - they believe the benefits of what they do outweigh the disadvantage of having people like me look on them with pity and distaste.
They get to appear in porn; I get to look down my nose at someone. Everyone is happy.
I think you misunderstand. I am NOT a prude; far from it. For example, I believe that schoolchildren should learn about sexuality which includes live models demonstrating proper sexual techniques and behavior, which most people would probably be adamantly against, except possible in Sweden.
I am seeking knowledge which I cannot get from my own experiences. I explained my reasons for asking the question.
Having said that, it is interesting that you know two couples who did it “for a thrill”. I don’t quite understand that.
There’s a woman at my gym that has run a very successful internt porn website (she’s the star) for around a decade. She’s pretty open about it.
Newbies at the gym always ask about the blonde with the huge breasts…
Okay, let’s say there are fifty thousand women doing porn in the U.S. Let’s estimate there are fifty million women in the U.S. whose age, level of attractiveness, etc. would allow them to do some sort of porn. That’s still only 0.1% of such women. It’s not that hard to believe that one out of every thousand-or-so women might be willing to do porn.
There have always been women who perform sexual acts for money—maybe not a large percentage of all women, but a reasonably large number in absolute terms. Making porn videos is in some ways safer than turning tricks. It’s also of course more public, but some women either don’t think about or don’t care about the stigma, or even consider such “fame” a plus rather than a minus.
Well, yes, I can undestand that. If I were broke, I would probably take a million do a threesome with Bill and Hillary, but I am talking about porn which is free on the Web, and therefore doesn’t provide for any way to pay the “actors”.
A lot of the free movies weren’t free to begin with. They were sold on pay sites then posted to all the porn sharing sites.
At least a few people have managed to turn amateur porn production into paying careers. I think the fetish performer Maitresse Madeleine started by producing home made videos of her and one guy (who seemed to be her boyfriend or husband). Now she is a major performer in and producer of studio porn movies.
This is questionable. I can imagine that every teenage boy these days has seen quite a bit of Internet porn. “Hey, guess what guys; I saw Bob’s mom, you know, the one with the big tits, giving head on givinghead.com. Check out the link”
The thrill you don’t understand is a form of non-economic payment. They get some personal benefit from it. Just because you don’t understand why they would find it exciting doesn’t mean there aren’t some who do. There’s plenty of sexual behaviors that I wouldn’t want to engage in that people enjoy.
I suspect you are overestimating the costs (social shaming from someone who sees and doesn’t agree with their choice) and underestimating the benefits (the thrill) compared to the people making the decisions. That’s based on your values not their values.
Maybe? I can even imagine Kim Kardashian doing exactly that, and she’s rich and famous!
But how many of them are into amateur MILF stuff? And how many are interested in that particular website? And how many will even know Bob’s mom? I’ve never seen the parents of some of my closest friends, and some of the ones I’ve seen I’ve never bothered committing to memory.
I think about sites wherein the women merely have to reveal their breasts, for example, and I think - if I had a smoking hot body, why not? It doesn’t seem like much to just show off my tits, especially if I am beautiful, and get paid for it. Some aren’t even in a sexual manner! There is a website specifically dedicated to women doing ordinary things while their tops fall off, slowly. Some of you know what I am talking about.
I don’t see how me taking off my clothes is anymore demeaning than a man paying me to take off my clothes. I mean, in that kind of situation, I am the one making money…?
As for the free porn, I presume it’s just fun. I mean, it’s not that different from sexting. Some people have an exhibitionist streak. The rest of us have vouyeuristic streaks (or we wouldn’t be watching), faint as they might be.
I’ve wondered similar things about the actors in studio porn, especially the sites that specialize in gay4pay type stuff where there’s a stable of regulars and a revolving door of ‘straight’ guys. Do gays in Miami play porn star bingo where they see how many accountants, car salesmen, and landscapers they can recognized from 3 years ago on seancody?