CORRECTION: This article inaccurately reported this porn story was on the May 5 front page.
Way back in the Dark Ages of the Twentieth Century, if one wanted to read news about the pornography industry, he had to get a copy of Al Goldstein's Screw magazine. However, since we now live in a much more enlightened era, one merely has to check The New York Times to find the same type of information. Such a story happened on May 5 when the paper published ‘Who Gets to Be Sexy?’ It is a detailed look at the current state of the porn business but since it is appearing in a liberal publication, the view is from a feminist perspective:
Kelly Shibari moved from Japan to the United States at 15 to attend college, toured as a roadie for rock bands and Broadway shows after graduation, and settled in Los Angeles, where she built a career as a film production designer. But in 2007, Hollywood writers went on strike, and work dried up. Ms. Shibari was commiserating with others in the industry, wondering how to make ends meet, when a friend dangled an idea: What about … porn?
So, it was a choice between that or becoming an accountant:
“My first reaction was, ‘There’s no fat girls in porn,’” Ms. Shibari said. And there were definitely no fat Asian girls. “The stereotype of Asians in porn is that they’re long and lean and not very curvy,” she said. “That’s how white Americans see Asian sexuality.”
...“Doing porn, in the beginning, was never about politics,” Ms. Shibari said. “I wasn’t trying to break any barriers. I just wanted to have a good time.” And make some money, too. She found that both were more attainable by striking out on her own.
A porn actress with the added benefit of battling ugly stereotypes at the same time. So would that make it Social Justice Porn:
Ms. Shibari’s story, of economic crisis spawning creative solutions, is a familiar one in the porn industry, which is looking less and less like an industry these days. Amateurs are flooding the internet; piracy has addled the once-dominant studios; production has atomized and scattered. But along the way, something interesting has started to happen: Women are rising up.
So this will be a how-to on making porn profitable despite technological and pirating trends that have mostly cut off the flow of income?
“The decentralization of the industry is giving workers more power,” said Heather Berg, a lecturer in gender studies at the University of Southern California who studies labor issues in pornography. “It’s now so easy to produce and distribute your own content that workers are a lot less dependent on the boss.”
Sure, but how do they actually generate revenue since the Web is already flooded with free porn:
“Since the recession, we’ve seen this giant influx of women who are older, college educated and have backgrounds in business,” said Ms. Shibari, who currently works mostly as a marketer. “Now we have all these empowered women who want to speak up.”
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Women's empowerment and all that but how do they actually earn revenue?
Take Pink and White Productions, which is run by the director Shine Louise Houston. In her time working for a sex shop, she had noticed a lack of queer material, so she decided to direct her own. In her first film, “Crash Pad” (2006), she cast Jiz Lee, a nonbinary artist and porn novice, to star.
Her mother must be so proud:
Mx. Lee has since performed in many of Ms. Houston’s films, but also for mainstream companies like Vivid, and now manages marketing for Pink and White. These days, “we’re seeing more trans people in porn, people of color, queer people, people of size, older people, people with disabilities,” Mx. Lee said. “We have a much more expansive vision of what’s possible.”
Um... Shouldn't that be Mxxx. Lee?
The rise of webcams has meant a boon in one-woman shops that can accommodate potentially endless performances. “I tend to not maintain the standard of beauty that the industry is looking for,” said Ingrid Mouth, who started performing on webcams when chronic illness made it difficult for her to sustain her career as an illustrator. “When you’re shooting your own content, you’re creating your own narrative. You’re building your own audience. It’s totally open-ended.”
The only thing missing is how they build revenue. Also missing is any hint there are male porno stars but they are written out of such a story when the view is from a Times liberal feminist perspective.
Oh, and since this is a Times story about porn how could there not be a reference to..... Stormy Daniels. Have no fear, she will appear in 3...2...1...
But more recently, Ms. Penley said, “I’m impressed how these efforts cross much of the industry, from Stoya to Stormy Daniels, from the cammers to the sex toy companies.” There is a growing sense that there is no bright line between feminist material and mainstream material.
And now we find out why no men profiled in this piece.
Their rising profiles have also given them opportunities to act as change agents within the industry. Recently the
performer and activist Lotus Lain leveraged Twitter to speak directly to her fans, explaining that she had stopped shooting scenes with men because she was too often cast in racist scenarios. “There are all kinds of kinks in the world,” Ms. Lain said. “I don’t understand why our industry chooses to play into the racist ones.”
Or maybe that is her SJW way of saying she would be too grossed out to perform with, say, Ron Jeremy:
Even social media exposure is a double-edged sword, as women in pornography have to work overtime to combat mainstream stigmas. And of course, whenever women rise, a male backlash awaits. For women, making it in porn is more of a hustle than ever.
But even that has its way of challenging stereotypes. It’s harder and harder to argue that porn performers are desperate people lured in by easy cash and coerced into submission. There’s just too little money in it — and women have to work too creatively to make it — for that to stand.
So, the bottom line here is little to no money to be made in porn as a performer:
The past few years have shown a glimmer of what’s possible in porn. Now, as Ms. Hearts said, “we’re just waiting for these old white men to die off.”
Really? And that's somehow going to get you to earn money in a business where almost all the product is given away free on the Web?
And for those who are curious, the "text" of this front page New York Times liberal porno clickbait was provided by Amanda Hess, a David Carr Fellow. I'm not exactly sure what providing text means but I guess it is The Times roundabout way of saying "written by."
