christ-on-a-stick

luvluv -

I'm sorry, but this is ridiculous. I realize this is somewhat nit-picky and not entirely germane to the topic, but I do feel that to the extent you are exaggerating and misrepresenting the reality it may be useful for me to interject here.

While an actress/actor may well be ON SET for 8 hours on a larger production, they are not "going at it for upward of 8 hours (with the possible exception of some of those marathon-ganbang-type films). We're talking about hair, makeup, wardrobe, and time between scenes. Sure, it can be hard work and physically taxing but it is NOT some kind of slavedriving atmosphere and I don't think that your mischaracterization of it does much to support your position.

I've been on plenty of sets that ARE (for the most part) "one big good time" - work, sure, but enjoyable for the most part.

I am still at a loss as to where you are deriving the statistics for your assertions that it is a "substantial portion who do not" (just enjoy sex as a physical act). You continue to use limited examples of people who are unhappy in the industry and then make big ol' blanket assertions like that one with NO BACKUP.

christ-on-a-stick

luvluv,

I'm going to have to address your last post tomorrow.... my head is starting to hurt from all this crossposting!!!

Til then.

luvluv

coas:

That really wasn't meant as any kind of bolster to my position (which was why it was in parentheses), but just as something to consider. I went to film school. I work in the movie industry (off and on.) I know that movies, quite often, are not fun, and doing them will often take the fun out of anything you would normally love and enjoy. I like hip-hop, and I like dancing, but there have been some days on the sets of some videos that I would rather have my eyes gouged out than to listen to or have to encourage extras to dance to a certain song one more time. The extras quite often feel the same way after dancing to a song (even one they like) for close to 10 hours. It's just the nature of the beast.

I'm just saying that simply because someone enjoys sex it does not mean that they would enjoy making a sex movie.

I'm assuming, in that the producers of many of the companies shown were known to specifically target girls that fit the description I have been using, that signifigant portions of the women who end up in the films actually fit that description. I think it is the most common sense assumption in the world, although people around here generally act as if this were improbable.

99Percent

luvluv:
This is the root of your problem.

You should realize that you don't have a clue as to what is the "well being" of the women involved. Because first of all you aren't a woman, and mostly of all you aren't them. Only these women know what is their well being, emotional, physical or otherwise. And the important distinction that LadyShea pointed out is that these women chose to have this profession. Nobody forced them to the lives of prostitution or porn stars. So you are in no position to have the moral authority to dictate what is wrong or right under these circumstances because there is no violence involved in their decision.

viscousmemories

What is the topic of this thread?

Don't get me wrong, I've just spent quite a long time carefully reading every single post, but I just really don't understand the direction it's going in.

We have LadyShea and COAS both having worked in the "adult entertainment" industry and who appear to be very articulate and well-adjusted women, we have a couple of apparently rational folks who believe that they are addicted to pornography, and who therefore avoid it completely, and then we have what appears to be a couple of, well, fundies, for lack of a better descriptive, who think that all porn should be done away with because, horror of horrors, there are people in the industry who have been emotionally damaged by their work.

Well, I'm sorry, but all of this just seems a bit ridiculous to me.

When I was a fundie, I thought that pornography was a sin. As was fornication, masturbation, impure thoughts, birth-control, etc. etc. ad nauseum. I believed I had a "pornography problem", because I was drawn to look at images of naked women and/or people engaging in sexual activities, and then drawn to masturbate after the fact. When I woke up (or is it grew up? gave up? looked up?) I realized that the "problem" was that I had a biological disposition to arousal and ejaculation, and the pursuit of this release was greatly eased by viewing pornographic images.

Whew. What a relief that was. Apparently, all of the stress, fear and anxiety I had been experiencing surrounding my sexuality and my search for an expression of it were actually caused by my whacky beliefs, not alleviated by them.

Later in life, I theorized that I was "addicted" to pornography because I had a number of very militant feminist friends, and I was trying very hard to learn how to be more respectful of women. These feminists taught me that porn objectifies women, objectification is wrong, and that if I viewed porn, I didn't care about women. As one who was raised by a single mother and who has six sisters, I have always had a great appreciation for the strengths and charms of women. So you may be able to imagine how disturbed I was by the thought that my interest in pornography was such a clear indication of my lack of respect for women.

Fortunately, my militant feminist friends dragged me all the way down the dark and narrow path of their reasoning, and I was able to see the dense patch of bullshit at the end of the road, where anyone with a penis is made to feel inadequate and unnecessary because everything about them is antagonistic and threatening to womanhood. If I hadn't seen that dark little patch, I might still be wandering along that path of ignorance, and I wouldn't have been able to poke my head above the trees and see that, hey, I can look at pictures of naked women while masturbating, and still think about and treat women with love and respect and admiration.

I have since formulated a number of opinions about the whole of the "porn degrades women" theory, but I don't know if we need to go down that road just now. For the moment, I will only address the one point that irks me throughout this thread. Why do some consider it immoral for anyone to enjoy the fruits of a porn models emotionally draining work? As someone who has worked in countless emotionally draining jobs, I can attest that every time you get a cup of coffee, order a McDLT, leave a parking structure, or leave a mess at a restaurant table, you are benefitting from the emotional trauma of more than one unfortunate individual. Right or wrong, that's how it works here.

christ-on-a-stick

:notworthy

viscuous,

... I love this part:
Exactly.

Glad you joined the discussion here!!!
Hear, hear!

More manana... great post.

Lauri

Jackalope

Dateline is known for doing big, splashy "exposes" of various subjects. Sometimes with very little journalistic integrity. Do you think they just might have stacked the deck a little by picking someone who was already traumatized by previous experience in life and moreso by the profession she chose? I know an awful lot of women who do porn who don't seem to have emotional issues about their work. A lot of them tend to work for women-centric companies, which might be part of it. They also don't seem to have any childhood abuse issues, which would also factor into things.

Having seen some of Dateline's previous journalistic offerings, my bet is that they picked their subject with the maximum drama in mind.

Harumi

Good point Jackalope,

And considering the way our society views pornography, there's more than a possibility that they chose to well, make it a bit more one-sided just to coddle society into thinking that porn is bad, and they were right to think that.

Dateline should have interviewed COAS and LadyShea. That would have been a better balance.

Although on the History channel, I watched a little thing on prostitutes, and the women they interviewed were well adjusted, happy healthy women. That one changed my views toward that area.

Just depends on what you choose to watch, I suppose.

dangin

It was primetime, not dateline. Sorry, I just get tired of reading the wrong newsmag throughout this whole thread.

Also, the end of the episode dealt with the "traumatized" actress going on to produce her own series, and her mother signed on to be her personal assistant. The funding fell through for the production, probably the most traumatizing thing about it.

But we seem to occasionally scratch the real issue here and then go off on a page of tangents.

The real issue here is sex. Perhaps one of the best explanations of the pervasiveness of sex within human development and psychology that I have read is The Red Queen: Sex and Evolution of Human Nature. Everything about us is formed or informed by sex. (as it is for all sexual species)

The average size of males vs. females, our mating habits, our personalities, our emotions, love, hate, material desire, even the size of our brains, and our intelligence are all the way they are to aid our ability to procreate.

This does not speak to pornography and prostitution per se. But it does plainly speak to why we are so involved with sex. It is not a cliche to say sex is "the stuff of life". Each and every human on this planet is the product of millions of generations of individuals who have mechanisms in them that made them engage is sexual practices. We are the product of eons of sexual selection.

Now, with this knowledge firmly in hand (except those of you who say that this is not god's plan ) who wants to question why pornography and prostitution is so popular?

Attacking pornography and prostitution is not the solution. Changing the minds of the ill informed and creating an accepting atmosphere for what is, after all, so normal as to be mundane is the solution.

You say people involved with porn suffer guilt. I say take away the idiocy that says what they are doing is wrong, or immoral, or evil. As a society, if we could just grow up and accept sex for what it is, a normal, important part of life, then we could affect real changes in these industries and do away with much of the unpleasantness that exists for some.

Oh yeah, and knowing what I know about sexuality's formative aspect upon us as a species. Abstinance education is just about the stupidest program I have ever heard of. Yet another attempt by the religious to remain children forever. Everystep mankind makes into maturity as a species, we have to drag the dug in, head in the sand religious folks who are afraid to venture forth and stand on their own two feet in the face of life and the universe. You make me ashamed of my species.

Barney Gumble

Wow.

Much like many jobs that people take up to earn a living across the globe.

There's a large difference between "not having fun" and "being abused".

Welcome to earning a living. Earning a wage does not entitle you to experience unbridled joy at every opportunity. Work is often hard and monotonous.

I had a deep-seated curiosity with computers as a child. Constantly tinkering, entering in huge datasets from magazines - the interest lied in the exploration, not merely getting it to perform an organizational function of my life in a more expedient manner.

Now, after I get home from my job as a systems administrator, at times I could care less about the profession or the technology in general, and would rather listen to some music or read a book. I’ll likely always have the interest, but constantly being exposed to the technology on a daily basis has indeed sucked out a certain degree of enthusiasm.

That's life. Repetition can, and will cause stagnation in your initial desire for your occupation at times.

How this is a moral/ethical argument against allowing the world of adult entertainment to exist legally is beyond me. I don't doubt there are some who aren't having gut-wrenching orgasms every second while on the shoot; that does not immediately imply they are "victims". They may simply not deify the act of sex as you do, and are better able to separate the physical from the emotional.

What you see as an ardent fact - the sanctity of the sexual act - others may see as a crippling hang-up from your own psyche.

“Assuming”. Yes, we gathered that.

So Primetime's "expose" is now the reality for the majority of the adult industry? How “significant” is this proportion – do you have any actual numbers?

(Edited to change "Dateline" to "Primetime". Sorry dangin. )