How about a relative? Someone you really love and care about?
I always try to keep in mind that those people doing that, they are someones son, daughter, brother, sister, nephew, niece, and possibly father or mother.
You can accept what you want but I’m going to have more respect for my niece who’s in nursing school than I would someone elses niece who’s doing a movie where she sucks off some guy while also taking it up the ass while 2 other guys wait there turn, all for maybe $100.
The artist and her husband (if the comic is giving out the actual scenario) are living in an alternative universe where the hubby thinks his wife doing **public **porn with a male porn stud would be super hot and a great thing to have out there.
I realize there are men who get off on private cuckold type action with other men servicing their wives, but making it public as a performance piece and rah-rahing your wife to be (essentially) a public porn actress is an entirely different level of strange and sits wayyyyy at end of the bell curve of men’s attitudes. It’s great that she’s sex positive but it’s kind of optimistic bordering on delusional for her to expect that she’s going to do this without fairly significant level of scorn, especially from women.
McDonald’s restaurants can get robbed, I suppose, and the risk of disease can be made pretty low with the checking legitimate porn producers do. To drag in another comparison, I honestly think porn actors are taking a lower risk than over-the-road truck drivers. (Both of those sure as hell have a lower risk of major musculoskeletal damage than nurses take.)
True, but my whole point with McDonald’s was as a low-level dead-end McJob comparable to being a porn actor: It’s possible to rise through the ranks through luck, skill, and perseverance, but the usual track is to treat it as a temporary source of money while looking for something better in a completely different field.
Anyway, as I said, I really don’t see it as even a potential source of shame. If a potential employer as a problem with it, well, some potential employers have a problem with gay people, or Jews, or married people, or unmarried people, or any number of things; it’s so hard to tell what could put an employer off that any actual rounded human being could be denied a job for a number of reasons. Laws exist, and I’m sure they help, but no-hire and fire decisions are both so subjective at times that it can be extremely hard to make a case.
What I’m saying is, porn actors do face discrimination, but so do so many other groups that thinking porn actors are making a worse decision than a gay person who’s come out is a bit odd.
I lose respect for people if they get a tattoo, in my mind I think I equate them with unnecessary plastic surgery, and even I know it’s a ridiculous stand for me to take. Porn I don’t care about, though I’d prefer it if it was well made porn, have at least some self-respect about making it worthwhile for viewers. From what I’ve seen of James Deen, he doesn’t put much effort into getting quality results, so that would be disappointing.
Nobody will care that you once worked a dead end min wage job. People will care that the first google result for their new girlfriend/employee is a video of her getting fucked in both holes.
And its naive to just say that employers shouldn’t have a problem with it. Many employers will have a problem with it because their customers could have a problem with it, and the more prestigious the job the more likely that it will be a problem. Ironically it probably won’t matter if you apply to McDonalds.
Every single one of those objections potentially applies to coming out as gay. Or trans. Or Jewish. It just depends on the region and which job you want.
You can’t make yourself unfireable or a guaranteed hire. You can not do a list of things to increase your odds, but the list of things you can’t do can get amazingly long and onerous in some regions, and some employment cultures, and I just find it extremely hard to look down on someone for finding something on that list they want to do more than get a job which has an obnoxiously long do-not-do list attached to it.
A fortiori for personal relationships, of course; they’re infinitely more fickle than employment is allowed to be.
I said that making a porno would be a poor decision because of the real life consequences. Being gay or trans is not a decision. There is no equivalency there and it doesn’t help any discussion to pretend there is.
That isn’t what you said. You said that, and I quote “Many employers will have a problem with it because their customers could have a problem with it, and the more prestigious the job the more likely that it will be a problem.”
And that same rationale could be applied to any form of discrimination, decision-based or not.
There is plenty of context. None of it changes the fact that Derleth wasn’t trying to equate being gay with shooting a porn movie, but arguing one point you made in one post.
Well to be honest, I doubt they would find them that way because its not like they role credits with everyones proper full name. It’s not like IMBD where all the actors have all their work listed. And with the thousands of faces and bodies out there you might not even recognize them.
So really unless they start bragging about it, how would you know?
I’d like to ask anyone who have known people who have done porn.
Could anyone really find out if they were not told first? Meaning did they do it under their real name?
Could anyone find their videos? I mean unless they were part of some classic like “Debbie Does Dallas” dirty movies are not exactly going into a movie database.
Would you even still recognize them if you didnt know it was them first? I mean people do look different with their clothes off.
It would depend on a few factors, including who the person is, their relation to me, and why I came to respect them in the first place. For the most part, I probably wouldn’t confront them. If they approached me and pressed for my input, I’d ask for details, listen, and go from there. Otherwise, I’d assume they had their reasons, likely voice some concerns (again, depending on who and why), but actively try not to judge. All in all, I don’t really know.
It would change my perception, but not necessarily to negative. As someone said earlier, as long as they’re a consenting adult, nobody is being hurt, and they have their reasons, it’s really not my call. I’ve known two people who played along that path (but weren’t porn actors), and I can’t say it wildly changed my opinion of them-- they were still good, normal people. There existed more curiosity (on my part, for the time) and their personality was the type where they would play by their own rules, so some of the dots connected, but if anything, it built trust (as sharing something sensitive can do). It cemented the fact that people and circumstances can be complex.
This. If a friend told me they were doing porn, I would instantly suspect they had a drug habit or some other money problem. But in the situation the OP describes, where a (presumably) well-adjusted, non-desperate person wants to do it for art’s sake, knock yourself out. Hell, I’d consider it too.
I get why some people would think that making a porno would be a poor decision, and even why that might be cause to respect someone less, depending on the circumstances. But I don’t think it’s fair to think less of a person only because they choose to do porn, removed from all context. And I don’t think it’s right to disrespect someone only because they do something that will earn disrespect from the masses. (And while I’m sure no one here is actually making such an argument, I feel like that is kind of the underlying message behind what some have posted.)
As you suggest, people’s lives are complex, and shouldn’t be measured on a fixed scale.
Like you, I’d probably view someone differently if I found they’d done porn. I hope I wouldn’t judge them for it.
The cartoonist of OJST who is deliberating whether to do porn is clearly aware of the possible, indeed probable negative reactions, and is weighing it all in her decision. She has reasons for doing it and reasons to be hesitant. I think it could well hurt her reputation, but I also think for her, as commentator on various sex-related topics and a spokesperson for sexual acceptance, it could provide valuable insights. I think under her circumstances, it might even be a brave thing to do.
And then I stop and think … porn … getting fucked on camera … damn, that’s … odd?
And I’m right back to not knowing what to think about it.
Thanks also to all who have weighed in on this discussion.