thoughts on porn

[TC]

A commenter on one of my favorite blogs wrote this really insightful post that I wanted to reproduce here (this is not from the main blogger):

Neex says: April 17, 2011 at 1:00 pm

There was yet another article about the risk to pornography users of addiction and terrible affects. The article presented the need for hard(giggle) research on how porn affects it’s users. While I want this to happen and I have concern for every human and support all research for the sake of benefiting people— what’s entirely missing from the article is any mention of how sex work affects the workers themselves. How many porn stars were sexually abused as children? How many pornstars have histories of sexual assualt and rape? How many pornstars had missing fathers and big issues with men? A lot of people presume this is case, and a lot of people purport that this is a myth, “Some women love it and have great childhoods and just want a fulfilling career in pornography!”. True, but what percent?

But no one even consideres researching it. Why? People ultimately, people don’t care why she’s there. And they don’t care how it affects her mental health afterward. The only concern we have is voluntary consent. If she is harmed by her participation in it, who cares, right? If she let’s it happen, it’s ok, right? If she winds up with PTSD after, who cares, right?

The only reason we care about consent is not because we care about her at all. In any way. It’s because we want to make sure whatever we do to her, or whatever we masturbate to watching happen to her– WE DON’T GET IN TROUBLE. Ultimately there is zero concern for who she is as a person, what brought her to this kind of work, how the rest of her life will be.

I’m not saying that all porn stars are miserable— I am saying, why don’t we want to do research to find out? Why don’t we care how work in pornography affects mental health afterwards? Why don’t we want to find out the percentages of childhood abuse and sexual assault histories of people who choose to work in porn?

I would propose the mechanism through which porn use hurts it’s users is not through anything inherantly wrong with watching naked people doing the deed— it’s the fact that you pay, SO THAT YOU DON’T HAVE TO CARE about how sexual acts affect a woman. Indeed many men who use porn genuinely think the porn workers are messed up and being more messed up by work in porn— and they still jerk off to it.

How does that affect us as humans beings, to not only absolve ourselves of any responsibility to help someone who is struggling with life issues– but to literally derive pleasure from watching them feel trapped in a world we believe is violating and destroying them?

How does that affect who we are, and how we care about “those REAL people who matter”?

Because we’re willing to do research on how porn affects porn users (the real people who matter) but we don’t even consider doing the same for porn workers. I think we may have found eactly why porn could be harmful to users— because deriving pleasure over something that (you believe) is causing suffering for others affects that person as well.

I think it degrades the ability to have empathy for women as human beings.

Consider that a 16 year old can perform in pornograpy and the law will be all over it. ABUSE! ILLEGAL! PEDOPHILIA! IT’S HORRIFIC!!! Two years later same girl is working in a porn legally. IT’S HOT! BARELY LEGAL! SEE 12 GUYS BANG A TEEN! SLUTTY EASY TEENS!

Why would we care about the 16 year old and not the 18 year old? Let’s say consent and experience is the same. The 16 year old was down. So is the 18 year old. Do we REALLY think 18 year olds are that much more capable of understanding the long term repercussions of how this might affect their mental health and well being down the road? Do we REALLY think the 18 year old didn’t experience someone older grooming her to become part of the industry?

Do we REALLY believe that doing so to a 16 year old is evil beyond evil beyond evil and doing so to an 18 year old is hotness above all hotness?

Quite literally this bizarre dichotomy that seems to all just “make sense” in the minds of a large portion of americans (men and women too)…. is the breading ground for not having a clue how to define what exploitation is, or whether we should care when it happens at all— or how much pleasure we should get out of watching it happen.

If porn stars are so happy, I want to see research about it. And I want us as a society to care about doing that research as much as we care about the “poor emotionally affect porn user”.

Porn has always existed and will always exist. The goal isn’t to eliminate porn, but to shift how we look at it, what we think about people who are participating in it, and seeing if we can instead of seeing ****, see a human being. We need to protect human beings even when they don’t believe they deserve protection.

http://partialobjects.com/2011/04/377/#comments

I'd like to hear people's thoughts on this. I reformatted the post for readability and corrected some spelling errors when I found them.

[The Man]

If the the two are at the age of consent, and both accept it, I think it's fine. But I agree that we need to shift the way we actually look at it.

[Magón]

Somewhat surprising (if you didn't know about it before) update for those into Women's Lib and how the Porn industry affects it.
Fem-Porn link.

[FreeFocus]

This commenter is making some important points. First, in terms of the "consumer" of porn, research has shown that porn is as addictive as cocaine, particularly when one masturbates to it and goes to climax (the brain will make the association between porn and climax and every time it is done, this association strengthens because it's getting reinforced). Porn addiction is real. Second, as the commenter noted, a lot of people who view porn are aware of some of the horrible problems porn workers might deal with and go through, but still go through with watching it and propping it up - but often, belief follows behavior - not the other way around (people will rationalize their viewing of porn, even if they know it might not be right. Pretty much we can apply cognitive dissonance theory here). On this particular aspect of the topic, I don't think the commenter is right. It isn't the paying for porn that allows viewers to push their qualms aside. After all, it's the internet, there's almost no reason to actually pay for porn because so much porn is free.

I agree that it degrades the ability to empathize. More research should be done into the feelings of porn workers, but again, their beliefs may follow their behavior as they attempt to rationalize their work in the industry.

[TC]

If the the two are at the age of consent, and both accept it, I think it's fine.

why does it magically become okay and not-exploitive on a certain birthday? what possible psychosocial dynamic works that way?

[Summerspeaker]

Yes, the industry's effect on workers absolutely deserves more attention. However, the assertion that porn has always existed fails after even a moment's reflection and the assertion that it will always exists rests on speculation.

[jake williams]

Most feminists don't push that sort of research because most feminists either aren't socialists or are anti-socialists. Addressing the working (and living) conditions of models/actors in porn would imply addressing the working (and living) conditions of other super-exploited women, and men, and eventually, everyone else. What doing so would find is that, although a lot of women in porn do have histories of physical and sexual abuse and are forced into shitty, oppressive, dehumanizing and dangerous jobs - but that the same is true of a whole lot of women in the rest of society, for reasons having little to do with the existence or non-existence of pornography. And it would cause a whole lot of problems for academic feminists and the universities who fund them.

The cultural forces that would prevent this sort of research because of sexist men's insecurities or value judgments influence feminist research only to a limited extent. On these grounds there is considerable academic freedom in many universities. The political and class forces which prevent honest social-materialist, pro-working class, or Marxist study are quite powerful and active, and do play a considerable role in circumscribing precisely this sort of research.

I think the pornography we have clearly reflects the sick society we live in, but by the same token I think the feminists obsessed with pornography being the sickness are severely mistaken at best.

Yes, the industry's effect on workers absolutely deserves more attention. However, the assertion that porn has always existed fails after even a moment's reflection and the assertion that it will always exists rests on speculation.

It depends what you mean by porn. A lot of theorists basically define porn as necessarily misogynistic, and so representations of sexuality which aren't misogynistic aren't porn, and so societies that weren't really misogynistic don't have porn. But I think this definition is really problematic, because it raises all sorts of issues about blurry lines (and stupid debates) about lines between "porn", "erotica", high or low art which happens to include gratuitous or non-gratuitous sexual content. It makes a lot more sense to simply acknowledge that cultural production in general - whether or not it earns label as "art" - reflects the society in which it exists. But every society has sex in it, and so virtually every society represents sexuality somehow. Calling it or not calling it porn is, as far as I can tell, unproductive semantics.

[Princess Luna]

Yes, the industry's effect on workers absolutely deserves more attention. However, the assertion that porn has always existed fails after even a moment's reflection and the assertion that it will always exists rests on speculation.

Unless the entire world enacts laws like Malta and Saudi Arabia (and even then it mearly would drive it under-ground) porn will aways exist and the murals they have found in villas at Pompeii show that porn existed even 2000 years ago and probablly since even futher back all the way to whem humans first begin to communicate though drawings.

[Tim Finnegan]

I'm not sure I understand the writer's proposition, that, if I have it right, the common assumption that pornographic performers are emotionally damaged suggests that pornography degrades our ability to feel empathy for women. Why is it assumed that this is a product of exposure to pornography, and not something that arrive at it with? It's not as if men need encouragement from their porn not to give a damn about women.

...research has shown that porn is as addictive as cocaine...

What a bizarre claim. Psychological dependence isn't an absolute property of the object of addiction, but depends to a great extent on the psychological state of the potential addict, especially when, as porn, there is an extremely limited chemical component (orgasm hardly being an exceptional product of pornography).

Porn addiction is certainly real, but so is internet addiction or junk food or, hell, any amount of weird things. The "porn is addictive" line is a one rooted in a fear of sexuality itself rather than a progressive concern for sexual issues.

However, the assertion that porn has always existed fails after even a moment's reflection and the assertion that it will always exists rests on speculation.

In a semantic sense, or a conceptual one? "Always existed" and "always will exist" are technically inaccurate, but is it as contentious to suggest that humans are naturally likely to produce sexually explicit imagery? They've certainly seem to do so the moment they get a chance.

[Gorilla]

If porn stars are so happy, I want to see research about it.

Who even claims that? A good number of porn directors (e.g. Jake Malone, Joey Silvera, pretty much everyone who works for JM Productions, Ashley Blue, Max Hardcore before he got sent away for obscenity when he should have been sent away for rape) even make a show of how their "actresses" are emotionally wasted husks. This is not even assumed to be a big revelation. Every serious porn watcher already knows this.

How many porn stars were sexually abused as children? How many pornstars have histories of sexual assualt and rape?

The number in both cases approximates to 100%.

EDIT: This piece is by Chico Wang, a director for the Anabolic/Diabolic studio. He talks about why women who work in porn (whom he calls "whores" repeatedly, ad literal nauseum) get into the business:

I would say 90% of the girls in the industry hate what they do and fuck only for money...

Most have an IQ of room temperature. Most do not have automobiles. Most do not have bank accounts. Most do not and cannot acquire a credit card. Most squander all their porn earnings almost immediately. Most will end up penniless and return to the business because their job skills relegate them to a lifelong search for a drug dealing sugardaddy or public assistance. Most have complete lack of self-esteem. These are societal problems and cannot be blamed on an adult industry which neither cares or should care...

I would also say that 99% of the girls in the industry have serious issues such as but not limited to previous bouts with rape, incest, molestation, drug abuse, pimp boyfriends, etc...

Now tell me this. Do you think the girls in the industry love what they do? Nearly every scene ends in a facial. Can you really fathom how truly degrading this act really is? Can you really fathom how truly degrading it is to suck off 5 complete strangers and gulp down their ball snot and have to pretend they loved every minute of it? Can you really fathom how truly degrading it is to suck on a dick that’s been pulled out of your own asshole which smells like complete shit? ...

Get out of fantasyland and really think about it.

http://peachyforum.com/t/why-girls-do-porn-145872.aspx

[PhoenixAsh]

There was yet another article about the risk to pornography users of addiction and terrible affects.

hmmm....

users?!

The article presented the need for hard(giggle) research on how porn affects it’s users. While I want this to happen and I have concern for every human and support all research for the sake of benefiting people— what’s entirely missing from the article is any mention of how sex work affects the workers themselves.

A good point

How many porn stars were sexually abused as children? How many pornstars have histories of sxual assualt and rape? How many pornstars had missing fathers and big issues with men?

Not really researching how it affects the workers.

First stating research to how it affects and then summing up a whole range of things happening before they start their work...before work could actually affect them.

But interesting propositions for case study. I believe there has been some preliminary work done.

A lot of people pressume this is case, and a lot of people purport that this is a myth, “Some women love it and have great childhoods and just want a fulfilling career in pornography!”. True, but what percent?

Interesting proposition for a case study.

But no one even consideres researching it. Why? People ultimately, people don’t care why she’s there.

And that is where the article turns to shit.

1) Not only women work in porn
2) Not all porn is men-women...but men-men & women-women
3) Not all porn is commercial and actually the largest part of porn today is porn produced by the ones starring in it and posted it online.

This article ignores a huge group of people who work in porn: male actors....not specifically the ones in hetro porn...but those in gay porn. It also ignores the lesbian porn scene. It narrowly focusses on a specific group and then presupposes...or makes it appear as such...that those are the only exploited group.

And they don’t care how it affects her mental health afterward. The only concern we have is voluntary consent. If she is harmed by her participation in it, who cares, right? If she let’s it happen, it’s ok, right? If she winds up with PTSD after, who cares, right?

Conjecture, preaching and over generalising.

The only reason we care about consent is not because we care about her at all. In any way. It’s because we want to make sure whatever we do to her, or whatever we masturbate to watching happen to her– WE DON’T GET IN TROUBLE.

Moralising.

Ultimately there is zero concern for who she is as a person, what brought her to this kind of work, how the rest of her life will be.

Well...thats an interesting question. Do you ask that of every person you encounter in a professional situation? If not...that probably for the same reason as generally speaking we do here.

I’m not saying that all porn stars are miserable— I am saying, why don’t we want to do esearch to find out?

That however is an interesting question. Here are some interesting reactions to that question...see if you can spot the men :-)

http://in.answers.yahoo.com/question...5144032AA0i6LC

Why don’t we care how work in pornagraphy affects mental health afterwards? Why don’t we want to find out the percentages of childhood abuse and sexual assault histories of people who choose to work in porn?

I think it is because "we" is not a close knit group but a selection of induviduals...who normally do not do this research.

Institutions not doing the research is because generally the institutions do not care and only research health and mental effects on workers if they think it raises their profit margins....or because of therats made by unions or workers councils.

I do not know if this is actually the case. But I think its a good starting point to assume.

I would propose the mechanism through which porn use hurts it’s users is not through anything inherantly wrong with watching naked people doing the deed— it’s the fact that you pay, SO THAT YOU DON’T HAVE TO CARE about how sexual acts affect a woman.

I think in fact the majority of people do not pay for porn....its freely acceseable on the internet. I do not think people who watch free porn care much either on a day to day basis.

Indeed many men who use porn genuinely think the porn workers are messed up and being more messed up by work in porn— and they still jerk off to it.

Hmmm....you do realise that almost as much women watch porn as men. At least in Holland? Right?

How does that affect us as humans beings, to not only absolve ourselves of any responsability to help someone who is struggling with life issues– but to literally derive pleasure from watching them feel trapped in a world we believe is violating and destroying them?

Well...since there is no study done on the subject...this is conjecture and since the whole focus by this part of the article seems to be a huge guilt trip against users (?!)...I think its fair to say htat you are now trying to play the emotions instead of the facts.

How does that affect who we are, and how we care about “those REAL people who matter”?

Because we’re willing to do research on how porn affects porn users (the real people who matter) but we don’t even consider doing the same for porn workers.

Again...we? There is no "we" you are agitating against. THere is a select group of people who do research on topics...for various resaons. The vast majority of porn users (?!) seriously do not care for either of the research and will probably read the other kind of research yhou are propposing with as much genuine interest as the one here.

There is however a THEY. Perhaps that is a more correct term.

I think we may have found eactly why porn could be harmful to users— because deriving pleasure over something that (you believe) is causing suffering for others affects that person as well.

Well..you believe that because if you would have read the research on how porn affects people you would have known the answer. That watching porn regresses the stimulus much like addiction does. It then needs more and more explicit immage to uphold the same level of excitement. It also deadens the connection with the real world. Making the fantasy more preferable to real life sex or sexual relations with a real flesh and blood partner. And it alienates people from physical and emotional contact.

Thats why...actually.

I think it degrades the ability to have empathy for women as human beings.
Consider that a 16 year old can perform in pornograpy and the law will be all over it. ABUSE! ILLEGAL! PEDOPHILIA! IT’S HORRIFIC!!! Two years later same girl is working in a porn legally. IT’S HOT! BARELY LEGAL! SEE 12 GUYS BANG A TEEN! SLUTTY EASY TEENS!

Again...gay sex, boys, lesbian sex.

Really,...get of your hetrosexual exploitation fetish...geez. (mockingly meant)

Also...people who scream peadophilia when it concerns somebody over the age of 13 do not know what peadophelia is.

>13 is child abuse or abuse of a minor.

Why would we care about the 16 year old and not the 18 year old? Let’s say consent and experience is the same. The 16 year old was down. So is the 18 year old. Do we REALLY think 18 year olds are that much more capable of understanding the long term repercussions of how this might affect their mental health and well being down the road? Do we REALLY think the 18 year old didn’t experience someone older grooming her to become part of the industry?

It seesm to me you are now debating the age of consent laws. I am willing to play...but so far you have been continuously supposing abuse, force and suffering for reasons to go into porn.

That counters you own arguments in the first paragraphs. But it also negates the fact that you are now making assumptions while you earlier argued there is no research.

Porsntart autobiographies are mostly online....you can do the litterature research yourself.

Do we REALLY believe that doing so to a 16 year old is evil beyond evil beyond evil and doing so to an 18 year old is hotness above all hotness?

Well...I think most peopel just believe its against the law. And therefore a violation of the law and therefore unlawful and we mostly equate evil with unlawful. This may not be all encompassing...but I tink its a pretty good description.

Quite literally this bizarre dichotomy that seems to all just “make sense” in the minds of a large portion of americans (men and women too)…. is the breading ground for not having a clue how to define what exploitation is, or whether we should care when it happens at all— or how much pleasure we should get out of watching it happen.

We are all exploited. why exactly do you say pornstarts are more exploited. And more interestingly...why do you limit that exploitation to hetrosexual women?

If porn stars are so happy, I want to see research about it. And I want us as a society to care about doing that research as much as we care about the “poor emotionally affect porn user”.

Again...."we" as a society do not care much about the emotional affects on porn users.

But to get back to your argument here...there is no research done. So saying that all pornstars are happy is as much valid as what you are doing.

Porn has always existed and will always exist. The goal isn’t to eliminate porn, but to shift how we look at it, what we think about people who are participating in it, and seeing if we can instead of seeing ****, see a human being. We need to protect human beings even when they don’t believe they deserve protection.

Well...I hardly think we see c*** in gay porn. But ok...I'll just read over that for the sake of this paragraph and forget you are horribly biased. Becaus the rest of this paragraph is actually pretty sound.



****



There I reviewed and gave my opinion on the article.



I think the research suggestions are sound.
I think the question is sound.
I also think its a sound question to ask why they do not research this.
And I think the conclusion...and with that I mean the last paragraph is sound.


IF

...you read over the authors horrible bias and focus purely on hetrosexual women and portraying them as the only exploited group in porn making it appear that there is no other kind of porn.

I also think the author is guilty of doing what she/he initially rejected and I think pretty much of the main body of the text is crappy arguments, presupposition and conjecture...and horrible analysis....mostly caused by a complete misunderstanding of the entirety of pornographic material (NOT limited to commercial porn for one).

[Klaatu]

A lot of modern "porn workers" are actually (A) friends getting it on and filming it (B) married people getting it on and filming it, and (C) so-called "workers" who are well-paid to perform. The only people getting uptight about this are the tightly-wound-up religion freaks.

[PhoenixAsh]

why does it magically become okay and not-exploitive on a certain birthday? what possible psychosocial dynamic works that way?

What are you actually arguing here? We have laws. These laws are the age of consent. Are you arguing to lower them?

Because at the age of consent we agree that the person can pretty much do anything sexual he/she wants...though I do believe in the US the age of consent for starring in porn movies and also internationally set at 18.

In some countries and US states the age of consent also stipulates that you can have sex at 16 but can not have anal sex at 18. Laws do not necessarilly make sense.

But there is a misconception. It is not about exploitation why people are outraged but because sex with somebody under the age of consent is considered abuse of a minor.

[Tim Finnegan]

Well...thats an interesting question. Do you ask that of every person you encounter in a professional situation? If not...that probably for the same reason as generally speaking we do here.

I assume the distinction is that, as the author suggests, there is a widespread belief that pornography is necessarily a degrading experience and that pornographic performers are necessarily emotionally damaged, so a lot of viewers enter into the experience "knowing", which is to say believing themselves to know, something significant about the person they are watching. The same isn't really true of, say, a barista at a coffee shop. It's not so much the form of employment that sets it apart as the beliefs about that sort of employment.

A lot of modern "porn workers" are actually (A) friends getting it on and filming it (B) married people getting it on and filming it, and (C) so-called "workers" who are well-paid to perform. The only people getting uptight about this are the tightly-wound-up religion freaks.

Could you elaborate on this point?

Well...I hardly think we see c*** in gay porn. But ok...I'll just read over that for the sake of this paragraph and forget you are horribly biased. Becaus the rest of this paragraph is actually pretty sound.

The article is pretty explicitly dealing with female performers and perceptions of female performers. This is a red herring.

(Arguably, it could be said that the comment in question was cis-normative- not all women have vaginas- but given that it's primarily discussing mainstream pornography, while trans porn is relegated to an often extremely distasteful fetish sub-genre, it could be fair comment. And you are aware, aren't you, that you get lady-free porn that isn't "gay", i.e. male solo porn, intended for both male and female audiences? Because women can like cocks too? But you didn't seem to think that of either of those, did you? Because you're not not actually a very good at playing the more enlightened-than-thou commentator, are you? )

focus purely on hetrosexual women

That's your inference, not her implication. Neither the gender-gender arrangement of porn is discussed nor the sexual orientation of the performers in question. Another red herring.

[agnixie]

How many porn stars were sexually abused as children? How many pornstars have histories of sexual assualt and rape? How many pornstars had missing fathers and big issues with men? A lot of people presume this is case, and a lot of people purport that this is a myth, “Some women love it and have great childhoods and just want a fulfilling career in pornography!”. True, but what percent?

There are preliminary studies, sort of, but it's awfully objectifying and seems to basically want to make a go at "diseased sexuality leads to porn" type moralism.

I would also second this

And that is where the article turns to shit.

1) Not only women work in porn
2) Not all porn is men-women...but men-men & women-women
3) Not all porn is commercial and actually the largest part of porn today is porn produced by the ones starring in it and posted it online.

This article ignores a huge group of people who work in porn: male actors....not specifically the ones in hetro porn...but those in gay porn. It also ignores the lesbian porn scene. It narrowly focusses on a specific group and then presupposes...or makes it appear as such...that those are the only exploited group.

The argument by straight bourgeois feminists is really a pain in the ass and it became quite obvious that it was all about the straight bourgeois moralism when Canada followed that lead.

[Klaatu]

Could you elaborate on this point?

I've seen all sorts of porn over the years. In the 70s and 80s, yes the majority of it was obviously done by professionals. But with the advent of the internet, you can find loads of video depicting girl-girl, interracial, gay, what-have-you sex films in which it is obvious that people are not paid actors. I can't prove it, but it is intuition, when one views amateur porn, which has been growing in popularity, the folks are not "acting," they seem to be for real (friends or married, that is)

Does this answer your question?

[Summerspeaker]

"Always existed" and "always will exist" are technically inaccurate, but is it as contentious to suggest that humans are naturally likely to produce sexually explicit imagery? They've certainly seem to do so the moment they get a chance.

Under what circumstances? I seriously doubt the hunter-gatherers cultures that constitute the majority of our history as a species produced anything like what we today call pornography. Nor is the term necessarily synonymous with sexually explicit imagery.

[Tim Finnegan]

I've seen all sorts of porn over the years. In the 70s and 80s, yes the majority of it was obviously done by professionals. But with the advent of the internet, you can find loads of video depicting girl-girl, interracial, gay, what-have-you sex films in which it is obvious that people are not paid actors. I can't prove it, but it is intuition, when one views amateur porn, which has been growing in popularity, the folks are not "acting," they seem to be for real (friends or married, that is)

Does this answer your question?

I understood that, I meant your comment (which I bolded) about "so-called workers" who are "well paid to perform". I'm not really sure what the distinction between a "so-called worker" and a plain old worker is.

That said, it is worth noting that the rise of amateur or semi-amateur (i.e. independent, in-your-spare-time) pornography does suggest complications which not many theorists have addressed yet.

Under what circumstances? I seriously doubt the hunter-gatherers cultures that constitute the majority of our history as a species produced anything like what we today call pornography. Nor is the term necessarily synonymous with sexually explicit imagery.

Well, firstly, yes, hunter-gatherers probably did not- although we hardly possess a comprehensive gallery of cave-art to verify it- but that's why I specified "as soon as they were able to".
Secondly, I'm not entirely convinced of the wisdom of compartmentalising "pornography", as our society tends to do, when discussing wider human history. "Pornography" in that form seems to me a product of a culture with strong taboos on sexual expression, while a culture with a more open relationship to sexuality would not necessarily offer the firm boundaries suggested by contemporary usage of the term, so it's hard to make direct comparisons. However, what we can say is image with evidently erotic intent- not necessarily intended to get people off, but certainly intended to provoke an emotional reaction- dates back into antiquity. As TMMAN said, the Pompeii brothel-murals weren't just there as technical manuals.

[Gorilla]

(C) so-called "workers" who are well-paid to perform.

That's bullshit. I think $700-800 is about the going rate for a female performer in a boy-girl scene. Seven or eight hundred to spend the better part of a day getting fucked repeatedly in your anus, mouth and vagina by the biggest dick they could find without any protection often while being slapped, choked and called a whore (customers demand it these days) and then kneel to take a semen shot on your face and smile for the camera like you love it so much - on top of whatever degrading shit the director may ask you to do in a "private shoot" beforehand which is pretty standard practice - that is not "well-paid" by any stretch of the imagination.

[Klaatu]

I understood that, I meant your comment (which I bolded) about "so-called workers" who are "well paid to perform". I'm not really sure what the distinction between a "so-called worker" and a plain old worker is.

Sorry, I guess I fall victim to the idea that acting in a porn movie isn't exactly "work." LOL

That said, it is worth noting that the rise of amateur or semi-amateur (i.e. independent, in-your-spare-time) pornography does suggest complications which not many theorists have addressed yet.

Quite true.