This is a well thought out comment from a reader that deserves to be read by everyone from AHF to APHSS to performers, it really hits the nail on the head, It’s what I would write if I could write that well…Good job BT thank you man!
BT Writes:
Geez, Mike. I go away for a couple of days and it looks like all breaks loose. And I’m trying to imagine your first day as a SCOTUS. Do you wear fishing gear and a t-shirt under your robes?
I also had a chance to read Julie Meadows’ response to your request for a comment on AdultFYI. Put aside the personal nature of the response – that’s between you and Julie. If you read through the rest of the response, coupled with silence from other organizations, and what you have is a big no comment with regard to Stagliano. Two thoughts.
This may not mean anything to the industry beyond whether one side in the case prevails over the other. If you’re in the pornography business, that may be a great outcome. What it says is the government really doesn’t care what you do to performers; your business is too dirty to regulate and we don’t want to get dirty. Just don’t kill anyone.
It’s bad news for performers because it says the government doesn’t care enough about what happens to you to protect you in the same way it would protect someone in a more socially-acceptable business. As long as a producer doesn’t maim or kill you, you’re a deer in the headlights for whatever the industry can imagine and ask you to do. You’re also at risk of catching any passing on whatever diseases and infections are among the pool of performers you’ll work with because the industry response to STDs other than HIV, at least as expressed on other boards is: Don’t cry over STDs. Just take some penicillin and get over it. Cost of doing business – your cost, not ours.
In that regard, here’s what I find interesting. Young girls are expected to do almost anything today. But when you see comments from many of the older performers on either AdultFYI, or who post on your site, or are quoted in books on the industry, they’ll say things like: “Back in our day, we faked ATM” (Rebecca Bardoux); “I didn’t do anal and all that crazy stuff” (Sharon Mitchell); “I wasn’t an anal queen” (Seka); “I was engaged four times because a guy wanted to have anal sex with me and I wouldn’t do it otherwise” (Amber Lynn). Doesn’t it say something about the change in the industry when industry icons also say, in essence, “This stuff is crazy. I would never do that!”
Which leads to the reason this could be important. Some businesses are regulated for reasons of the public health and public good – think the gambling industry or prostitution in Nevada. Or, think the coal mining industry.
But the larger reason businesses are regulated is that they become unable to regulate themselves. Someone has to step in and referee. Someone has to say: this is acceptable business behavior for your industry and this is not.
That’s where porn is right now. You had a time – and I would argue it was the most industry’s most profitable time – where pornographers had lines they did not cross in terms of content. I don’t know if the Cambria Rules came first, or if Cambria wrote down unwritten rules that had worked, but there seemed to be a limit to what people would and would not film.
In addition, for whatever reason, the industry appeared to be relatively HIV free.
What you’ve got now is an industry that is unable or unwilling to regulate the content it produces. That may or may not be a First Amendment issue. We won’t know unless and until someone tests it.
But, you also have an industry that is unwilling or unable to say what is acceptable behavior when it comes to the health of its performers.
The argument had been: We test. We test regularly. Testing works.
When testing didn’t work, for whatever reason, the argument was, well, the individual didn’t get HIV on a porn set or on a heterosexual porn set. It’s escorting. It’s cross-overs that are to blame.
When you point out that STDs besides HIV are prevalent in the porn population, the response is either that the researchers lied and you can’t trust their stats, or: Hey, what the big deal. You cure it with some antibiotics. That’s the risk you take when you choose this profession.
When Mr. Marcus shoots while taking antibiotics – according to his story – and may or may not have faked his test – the response is to attack him but remain silent on the larger issue. Or to say, so what, no one got sick as far as we know.
Now, you have Stagliano. He may or may not have tested. He may or may not have revealed his status to a performing partner. It doesn’t seem to matter that you now have a heterosexual HIV + person interacting on film with the intimate parts of naked actresses because folks think he’s a nice guy, and besides, he didn’t have sex.
When pictures surface of him with his fingers inside performers, well, it doesn’t matter because it wasn’t his penis.
When pictures surface of him with his penis between the buttocks of a Brazilian performer – I can’t tell whether he’s penetrated her or is just up against her – the response is silence.
My point is: The industry rule seems to be: We have strict testing policies and you can’t work with an STD unless:
The STD is non HIV. If that’s the case, hey, you should have expected to get a disease when you signed on.
The STD is HIV and you have non-penetrative sex – and we’re going to define and redefine what counts as penetrative sex, based on whether or not you’re an industry icon.
When an industry can’t define what is and isn’t safe and acceptable behavior, the government steps in.
That’s where you’re at at this moment in time. Unless, the first scenario is accurate, and the government just doesn’t give a damn about the safety of performers because its a distasteful industry.
30 Responses
Porn Is Too Dirty To Regulate http://t.co/QKVLKRgjfa
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Performers are also treating themselves for the STD’s they are getting! Let’s not forget that little tid-bit, please?
This bit of information scares the s**t out of doctors who realize that the porn venereal pool is in fact creating stronger and stronger STD’s which are becoming harder and harder to cure with ANY medication!
Simply put, lets say a performer doesn’t take enough self-prescribed medicine to cure the STD raging in his/her body, okay? What happens next is the STD becomes resistant to that particular and otherwise effective medication and as they pass it on to the other performers, it grows stronger and stronger until it no longer responds to ANY medication!!!!! We already have an untreatable gonnorhea train barrelling down on us, so lets pull our heads out of the sand and stop the madness before it’s too late! Puleeze!!!!!
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even if all these issues are equitably resolved, i.e., condoms, testing, all the health issues, there’s still hardly no fucking work for a shitload of people, you know, crew people, producers, directors. Unless the entire business is going to made up of performers streaming their private parts, the business is dead. morte. finito. and has been for quite a while. Some might say it’s only mostly dead because we all know there mostly dead and dead dead. Ok. It’s mostly dead instead of all dead. Gee. I feel better. Not.
No shit! Jimmy ! Its getting worse.
It really seems like porn is too irrelevant to regulate.
The porn “industry” really never was an “industry” at all. It was just a hodgepodge of porners doing their own thing and if they went too far they got slapped down a bit.
Remember, porn had quite an incredible run. Double-digit growth for decades, until it finally started crashing down around 2006. So, it was a great run and now the good ole days are gone, possibly forever.
It’s funny, when people get hit in the pocketbook they all start pointing fingers and they become injustice collectors. Maybe it’s best to say “it just wasn’t meant to be”. Heck, even music and the freakin’ movies got ruined, I still can’t believe that happened!
Oh, back to the whole too dirty to regulate question: It’s over, nobody cares..Next.
I think the reports of porn’s death might be a little exaggerated. Just in my own professional circle (which is that of fetish, fetish porn, and other fun niches), plenty of people are making a very good living. In part because fetish customers want something very specific–they usually aren’t happy with the more generic hit or miss of tube sites.
And then, on the other side of the business, I keep seeing all these “mainstream” porn companies making big budget parodies (at least for porn standards), and presumably they are making plenty of money. I find it hard to believe they are all losing money on these costly productions.
I think there is a certain kind of company–mid-size, shall we say–that is probably being phased out. Too big to have efficient and low budgets; but too small to compete with the really big companies.
But the bigger companies seem to be doing very well. And for the little companies–the companies that can shoot, light, score, edit, advertise, and sell their videos on their own with a crew of 1 or 2 people–it’s still a very profitable market. Often they only need to sell one or two hundred copies of a video to make a very nice profit.
This seems to be what’s happening in mainstream Hollywood movies too: There are the huge studio blockbusters, and then there are increasingly more and more movies made by tiny little companies that have tiny budgets but a lot of know-how.
As the technology continues to improve, it will be easier and easier for someone with virtually no budget to make a movie that has a truly cinematic picture quality, etc.
Right now there are several cameras being built and patented that are not particularly expensive, and can create a cinematic quality movie pictures with no professional lighting needed at all.
The business is changing, to be sure–but dead? I think that would be a rather hasty conclusion to draw.
The big companies aren’t doing as well as you might think, Alex. Vivid and Wicked come to mind. Just because they might continue doing some of the things they’ve been doing doesn’t mean that all is well in paradise.
and btw, whether or not making cinematic quality porn flicks becomes easier and more available to all isn’t what’s depriving so many of work. Leastwise, not in a major way. Some of us have been doing that for years. And you’re wrong, in general, about no professional lighting needed to make cinematic quality movies… unless you’re making a cinematic quality movie that purposely utilizes that sort of “look.” If you were right about that, many more mainstream producers wouldn’t bother with professional lighting.
somehow, my two posts seem to be posted out of order.
Oh, the cameras that I’m talking about aren’t yet on the market–sorry, I know someone who has already built one and is in the process of patenting it…apparently there are already other companies making similar cameras.
For now, yes, lighting is vitally necessary. 🙂
And I’m quite sure that the profits for big porn aren’t as big as they once were–but there is a world’s difference between saying profits are down, and porn is dead.
There are plenty of little companies that are doing better than ever.
BTW, I didn’t mean “sorry” in a sarcastic way… I meant sorry, I should have clarified that better.
Yes, I think the industry has undoubtedly changed. But again, lots of smaller shops are doing very well. Some tiny companies are producing movies that have far better quality than what some bigger companies were making just 10 or even 5 years ago.
Though I do take issue for the notion that porn itself is a cover for trafficking. I think there may be talent agencies that use porn as a cover for that kind of thing. But saying PORN itself is a cover makes it seem like everyone involved in making porn movies is also involved in prostitution. That would strike me as obviously erroneous. I think the overwhelming majority of companies actually *making* porn have absolutely no hand in any form of prostitution.
I’m aware of the cameras you speak about. Professional lighting still won’t become a thing of the past once they are released, neither will many other professional production elements. They might make it easier for those with little to no budget to make better looking porn flicks but, frankly, there’s so much more to cinematic quality movies than low or no light picture quality. The evolution of movie-making with less and less expensive gear had been moving forward for a while now, probably since the release of Sony’s VX2000. That camera’s introduction was a watershed moment for independent film-making. I’m sure other cameras may be watershed moments as well. But that still doesn’t solve many of the problems of porn companies, the distribution of their products, or the employment problems that exist. I agree, btw, that niche content has taken on a whole new status in terms of making money.
Alex, I didnt mean to insinuate that everyone involved in the making of films is directly involed in the prostitution. Their only ‘involvement’ would be in doing business with these people who are directly involved in it. These people, pimps, are “using the industry” as a cover, and the industry is doing business with them, knowing full well what these traffickers are doing. I dont think anyone would argue that Vivid, and Hustler, and all the other companies dont know whats going on. Why ‘the industry’ allows this to continue, why the FSC stands by and does nothing, why the large companies continue to do business withthese people are legit questions. What these pimps are doing is no secret to any of them, and the industry keeps playing right along, putting money into the pockets of these people.
Alot of these girls use their porn stage names when they are advertised on the escort sites. Its no secret who is involved, and its no secret that porn companies continue to do business with them, knowing full well the other things these people are involved in.
Some of them are always on the road to Dubai. They can make a nice nestegg there escorting.
Jimmy D – as a guy who has been around this industry for years, what is depriving so many of work, per your post below? “btw, whether or not making cinematic quality porn flicks becomes easier and more available to all isn’t what’s depriving so many of work.”
I was a big fan of your blog back when you were posting. It was some of the best writing on porn that I’d ever read – discovered it from Mike’s site, which is also some of the best writing on porn that I’ve read.
BT
Amen!
Yes, for example, I have hired models that I know also work as escorts, as well as strippers, as well as dominatrixes, etc.
What’s your point? That no one should ever work with someone who also escorts?
What on earth could I do to prevent a model I work with, say, 4 or 5 days in a given year, from doing whatever the hell she wants during the 360 days I’m NOT working with her?
I’m just not really clear what your point is.
BT- It’s simply supply and demand. There are so many people, like myself, who represent the supply side of the employment pool while the demand has shrunk to the lowest levels since I’ve worked in this industry. (Which is about 20 years.) Why has the demand shrunk? I’d say piracy is the #1 reason. Companies can’t compete with free (I was writing about that years ago before “free” became so prevalent, but was a growing concern) and since so many of the pirates are giving away so much for free on the internet, how are enough companies supposed to make enough money to be job creators and providers who keep even a small percentage of the people employed who once were regularly employed?
Jimmyd is correct that there is less porn work for performers than ever before. So why are there more agents than ever, and more “performers” with those agencies than ever? Because they are all doing other work besides films.
Right now on The Luxury Companion Allie Haze is listed as available in New York, from now until next week. I wonder what she does in New York, film porn? Doesnt she have a legal agent in California?
Allie Haze is working over State lines fucking rich men through escorting.
Lets not pick on Allie too much. She is just the first one listed when you log onto that escort site. There are numerous others who work Directly for several legal agents in Calfornia also on that site, and using their porn stage names in the advertisements. Its no secret.
Allie’s awesome. She’s a pisser to work with. I’m not judgmental about porn chicks doing privates. Considering I’ve hired so many of them to fuck, and to fuck who I’ve arranged for them to fuck, who am I to judge who they fuck and why they’re fucking them? Oh! They’re fucking some dudes for money? Yeah. That’s so incredibly different than fucking in a porn flick.
They took down her name. You don’t see her picture and name on the login info any more. What cracks me up about porn start escort sites is how they use the photos that show how the girl looked at the best point of her career. Often times the photo is out of date and the girl doesn’t even remotely look like that any more.
Like sucked up and tore up!
Seen on of Kevin’s girls working the street the other day! Tweeker!