Over the past couple of years or so, there have been several documentaries that have come out talking about the porn industry and adult work in general. However, none of them have been quite as controversial as Rashida Jones’s movie, “Hot Girls Wanted”. Based on the Netflix ratings alone, I’d say it’s controversial.
It keeps coming up on my Netflix suggestions list, so I decided to give it a watch. And while it was predictably harsh on the porn industry, it did manage to make me think about the business that we’re talking about right now. The message I got from it, though, is probably not the one that the producers and directors hoped for me to get.
I understand it. I really do. What they want me to believe is that the porn industry is terrible, that it’s demeaning, that it’s harsh on women, and that it’s generally an unpleasant way to make money to say the least. And maybe it is for some people. What I actually got from it though was that women do not get any respect once they have performed in porn. And that’s something we need to work on as a society.
For example, in the movie, they were talking about cam girls. Specifically they were talking about how can girls, once people found out “back home”” that they were doing webcam work, were shamed into not doing it anymore.
Think about it this way. All over America and probably the world, there are people having baby showers. What are we really celebrating? We’re celebrating two people getting together, having sex, and having it end in pregnancy. So, you went to your daughter’s baby shower, did you? You just celebrated the end result of your daughter and son-in-law coming home one night from dinner and a few glasses of wine, sharing a passionate kiss, tearing each others’ clothes off, and him banging her from behind doggy style while she’s on the kitchen counter, with her having the climax of her life as he cums deep inside her. You’re welcome for that mental image, by the way.
But what if instead of celebrating pregnancy, your daughter was actually celebrating that big bonus she got from performing anal? OK, maybe she wouldn’t tell you that. But let’s say that instead of celebrating pregnancy, she was happy because she’d made a lot of money. She’s got bills. She’s got that big student loan to pay off, she’s popular, and she just made $10,000 for a two-day gangbang shoot.
So maybe you don’t want to know the details of it. That would be understandable. But are you supportive? Maybe. What if you found out one of your kids’ schoolteachers paid for college that way? Would you try to get the schoolboard to fire her? It happens. What if it was the hot girl you went to high school with? Are you tempted to shame her? How about an ex-girlfriend you managed to convince to make amateur porn? What would be the effect on her life of sharing that with her co-workers?
And that’s what’s so bizarre about our society. Here were are, friends, talking about porn. If you didn’t love porn, you wouldn’t be here, right? You like seeing a hot babe naked. Maybe you like seeing a babe deepthroat, maybe you like vanilla sex, or maybe anal, group, gangbang, or a bound-up chick getting throated. Whatever your level of comfort and kink, you like it, right? And we all know that most of us enjoy having sex in the comfort of our own homes. We know that the performers in porn are people who get up in the morning, live their lives, pay their taxes, have families, maybe even jobs outside of porn, and so on.
Is it so hard to comprehend that people could be publicly sexual, without the need to make their lives miserable?
I get part of it, though. There’s dangers involved in sex work. Not every guy out there is looking to have a pleasant good time. There are people running around with diseases that can be spread sexually. Some partners are violent. Some of the niche stuff strays from “enjoyable consensual sex” once in a while. You know what other jobs have hidden dangers? Damn near every one of them. If you’re worried about performers having a bad time, advocate for a better work environment, for Pete’s sake.
If we can take away the stigma the people working in sex work, whether it’s pornography or camgirl work or even prostitution, I think we’ll see the unhappiness that is attached to such work simply go away. There is nothing wrong with two people who consent to an act performing that act. It should not matter whether the people performing this act are doing it for fun, or for pay. It should not matter whether you know the person or not. If you know them and it bothers you, look away. That’s all. Maybe it’s the American in me speaking, but honestly, I think we all just need to mind our own damn business a little more. Now get back to enjoying the porn, and show a little love to the people who get us off.