The AVN
Awards were disappointing this year. The
AVN Awards are the porn industry’s version of the Oscars (although Golden
Globes might be closer). If you’ve seen
BOOGIE NIGHTS there’s a sequence at the AVN Awards.
Porn stars
all dress up, attempt to look glamorous and classy, win awards for such
categories as “Best Anal Sex Scene” and “Best Director – Comedy.”
I’m sure
they’ve been handed out thirty/forty years in one form or another, but it’s
only been a few years ago that Showtime started airing them (taped delayed -- by five months). .
The first
year I saw it I laughed my ass off. How
could you not when a trashy blonde with tears in her eyes thanked “Jesus and
all the guys that fucked me in the ass?”
How much would you pay to hear Nicole Kidman say that at the Academy
Awards?
What made
it additionally funny was that none of it was intended to be. This wasn’t a sketch. No one was winking at the camera. The sincerity was both poignant and okay –
I’m going to hell – hilarious.
Showtime is
still airing the show every year so obviously people (men I suspect) are
watching. What I don’t know is whether,
like me, they’re watching for the laughs, or cheap thrills, or worse – they’ve
got bets down on these categories.
But I find it
a guilty pleasure. At least I
used to.
Watching
the 2020 awards (recorded before all the lockdowns), it just
felt sad. The speeches were the same so
they felt like the same joke over and over.
The novelty was completely gone.
And what remained was the sadness.
You know these are people who mostly come from broken homes and
heartbreaking childhoods. You also know
the career span of a porn star is just a few years. And then what?
I don’t
even know how the industry survives today.
There are all these free Pornhub websites where you can see clips of
anything you want for free. You used to
pay to see Stormy Daniels. I was
surprised that they’re still making “movies.”
And as I
watched these people try desperately to hold onto the luster of better days I
thought to myself – this is now ALL award shows in 2020. Even
Sam Rubin & Mindy Burbano don’t seem that funny anymore.
29 comments :
I don’t consume it. But I am curious, in a non-judgmental way, what value people see in it.
Your post reminded me of some questions that I have long kept to myself . . .
. . . does pornography -HAVE- to be so one-dimensional (like so many other movie genres)? Can it be sex-positive and body-celebrating without the power trip? Or is the display of power what makes porn, porn in the first place?
And also, (don’t laugh) but why don’t any women -own- the publishers or studios that produce this stuff? Don’t tell me there’s no VC funding available (Kickstarter, anyone?) Wouldn’t that almost by definition cut down on the exploitation sex workers face?
Socially responsible pornography. With paid time-off and off site daycare available for employees. You work nine to six and any necessary overtime is carefully tracked and paid for.
I mean, why not?
"although Golden Globes might be closer" - Ken, you kill me!
As I've always said, we need more awards shows
The thing I really admire about porn stars is that they're all method actors.
not everyone can win the award for best s&m, but remember, it's an honor just to be dominated.
"You young people don't know what it was like. We had PLOTS then!"
Oh, I don't know. I did somewhere between 25 and 30 gay porn videos between the mid-'80s and the early '90s and my life growing up was very normal and very average. Almost depressingly so. I got into porn on a whim. An "I'll do it if you'll do it" thing with a buddy. I made the cut but my buddy didn't. The money was very decent (not so much now) and I handled the stresses of the business well. (You try to look all hot and bothered when you're paired with someone who has zero appeal to you and tell me there's no acting involved.) Also, many men have trouble, um, "functioning" during a shoot with a bunch of guys standing around watching and stops and starts to fiddle with the camera or the lights or to touch up somebody's make-up or whatever. I never had that problem. Well, back then, anyway.
I quit the business because my partner (who I am still with thirty years later) was not crazy about his husband's naked backside appearing on TV screens.
I have no regrets about doing what I did. I enjoyed it, honestly. Met a lot of nice people. Probably no larger a percentage of seriously screwed up people than you'll find in any other business.
Oh, but the awards shows? Totally stupid and completely ludicrous. And the fact that I have no awards on my mantle has nothing to do with it.
If we lived in a world free of religious repression, sex would be as popular and wholesome as professional athletics. Imagine the Super Bowl of Sex! I want to hear Joe Buck call that one!
@Blinky: Did you see "The Sex Olympics" on THE GROOVE TUBE? All the good stuff ruined by network difficulties.
Thanks Lemuel. Inspiration from The Groove Tube and John Cleese's Sex Education class from the last Monty Python movie.
Rashida Jones produced a documentary series for Netflix called "Hot Girls Wanted: Turned On" about people in the porn industry and some of the people who consume it. It's incredibly depressing, although there is one segment about a woman director in Europe who's doing more artistic films aimed at a female audience.
BTW, when you say that nobody was winking at the camera, what part of their bodies did you expect to be winking at the camera?
I saw a reasonable amount of porn in my faraway youth. And adulthood. And early middle a... Anyway, the point is the only ones I kept were the ones that were funny *deliberately*. A soft-core porn from the 70s called "Mrs. Barrington," which played as if "The Carol Burnett Show" had decided to do a porn movie. "Party Doll-a-Go-Go," which, between the porn sequences, interspersed beatnik "stream of consciousness" patter from the actresses. "Sex Trek: the Next Penetration," in which the lead actor did a KILLER William Shatner impression. And let's not forget the recent "Batman XXX," which boasted of hiring costumers from the original 1966 series, so that all the costumes were exact replicas.
It's extremely rare that I watch porn anymore, but when I do watch porn, I seek only the finest, the funniest, the most esoteric. Unless I can find a Traci Lords movie, then I go for that.
I'm glad to see some sex worker positive comments here. I'm no insider and lead a vanilla existence, but having personally had the opportunity to become acquainted with some sex workers and adult industry entertainers (including those who have appeared on film), I can honestly say I have found them to be lovely, genuine, down-to-earth people. Everyone has their own reasons for entering the profession, but as they often say, "sex work is work too." Some DO try to take control of their own brand and product, but it's incredibly competitive and requires work and business sense, and of course they don't have the same amount of capital as the large businesses that exploit the talent and workers (like all fields). As for the awards, I'm sure a lot of it is for promotion and meant to be entertainment as well (and probably helps your career), but recognition is recognition.
I have a neighbor who, I was told, had done a handful of porn videos a few years prior. The guy who hepped me to this loaned me one of the neighbor's vids, which I watched. I wanted to see for myself that it was really him. And it was. But you know, watching my neighbor in that movie, I kept remembering how, years ago, in Sunday School, they told us that God designs each and every one of us. Every finger, every toe, every hair on our heads. Every part of our bodies, all created especially for us and put into place by the Lord God himself. And watching my neighbor swinging his oversized schlong around in that porn video, all I could think of was that God can be a real asshole.
Oh, my neighbor, it turns out, didn't mind that I'd seen one of his vids. He has a sense of humor about it and explained that at the time he needed an influx of cash and doing three or four porn vids was a quick and easy way to get it. I didn't tell him that, straight guy though I may be, I was really in awe of his penis.
Sylvester Stallone made his debut in a softcore film called Party at Kitty and Stud's. When he became famous with Rocky, the rights owners re-released it under the new title The Italian Stallion.
I've never seen Party at Kitty and Stud's but I'll venture a guess it's superior to Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot.
Referencing what Happily Retired said about some men having trouble "functioning" with guys standing around watching, that's the thing about doing porn that I really don't understand. I know that porn movies have to have production crews, too, but how the hell can anyone feel comfortable doing the deed with all those guys behind the camera seeing everything you do? I've seen outtakes where you'll see eight--maybe ten--people back there. If they looked like they were getting into what was going on, it might help, but generally the crew all look like they just want to get everything wrapped up so they can get home in time to catch "NCIS: New Orleans." Maybe you just have to be a lot more of an exhibitionist than I am. Hell, I was never comfortable doing it in our first apartment, knowing that since we could hear the neighbors above and below when they were going at it, they could likely hear us.
We didn't have dialogue--we came in faces, then.
The porn industry is busier than its ever been in terms of the amount of product being churned out. The internet has a voracious appetite for this stuff. There's an endless need for fresh material and for fresh faces. Sheer volume makes it much more difficult than it used to be for any performer to establish themselves and become a "name."
At the same time, profits are tighter than they've ever been. So much gets uploaded and made available on the internet for free that it cuts into the money that's available to go into the next production. Porn performer salaries are not what they used to be and even bigger budget productions have cut back on the kinds of perks that used to be common. Catered meals have been replaced by someone making a run to McDonald's. No make-up or hair stylists. Performers have to take care of that themselves.
Self-contained "features" have been largely replaced by easily downloadable "scenes," generally running 20 to 30 minutes. Often, five or six of these "scenes" will be edited together after the fact and released as a feature.
For most people who do porn, whether in front of the camera or behind it, it's not a profession. It's moonlighting. These people have jobs and lives that have nothing to do with the sex industry. Performers go into it aware that whatever "fame" they achieve will likely be short-lived because the guys watching this stuff get bored quickly. Today's "Wow! She's hot!" is tomorrow's "Oh, god, not her again!"
Interestingly, though, there are men in straight porn whose careers have lasted for years and who have racked up thousands of credits. Some of these guys have kept at it well into their 50s, though you'll rarely see women able to work to that age. As is true of mainstream Hollywood, you're more likely to see a 55-year-old man paired with a 25-year-old leading lady than you are to see a 55-year-old man with a woman his own age.
Gay porn is even more age-phobic than straight porn, with many men finding themselves eased out of the profession by the time they reach their 30s because they've gotten too old for an audience that prefers men in the 18-to-25 age range.
Russell, I fell off my stool laughing at the first paragraph of your post. Just wanted you to know. That was good.
"I owe a lot to my family for holding me together and loving me and having patience with this obsession of me. But I want to say thank you to you. I haven't had an orthodox career and I've wanted more than anything to have your respect. The first time I didn't feel it, but this time I feel it. And I can't deny the fact that you masturbate to me. Right now, you masturbate to me! Thank you."
My problem with pornography is that most of it seems so very, very silly. Scenarios, situations and dialogue dreamed up by people whose sex lives, one suspects, take place largely in their imaginations. Even as a young guy watching the stuff I could never really get past the absurdities of it. Real people don't act like that or say those things. But then, maybe that's why so many men do find it appealing. Because it doesn't reflect the way things work in real life. Maybe many men are attracted to the fantasy aspect of it and don't mind that it's divorced from reality. Maybe I'm just weird, sitting there thinking, "Oh, come on, no man anywhere would ever say something that stupid to a woman, and no woman everywhere would find it erotic."
None of that low brow stuff for us.
We’re only into the stars with unfunny
literary nom de spumes;
Billy Shake Spear
David I Sacks
Ken The Vine Le Vine
Neil Semen
John Updyke
I had a boyfriend who liked watching porn, and I made an honest effort to try to enjoy watching it with him, but I just couldn't get into it. As someone above said, there's just something basically silly about so much of it. Far-fetched premises, unrealistic dialogue and too much bad acting. On top of that, I just couldn't find anything particularly erotic in watching people--even very attractive people--have sex. Apparently women and men are just wired differently when it comes to porn.
Porn's greatest contribution to the wider culture is their hilarious puns on mainstream Hollywood movies.
I'm referring to titles like Star Whores: The Empire Licks Crack, Shaving Ryan's Privates, Forrest Hump, American Booty, and In Diana Jones.
There's more wit in those titles than all the scripts by Richard Curtis combined.
Apropos of Troy McClure's comment, I remember one from the 80s called "Terms of Endowment."
What has always fascinated me about porn is not the porn itself, but the way people react to it. Men tend to like it, but women don't. There are certainly exceptions on each side, but for the most part, you have men watching it and thinking, "Wow, this is really hot," while women are staring at the screen and thinking, "Is he joking? Does he really find this stuff erotic?" What the difference is in the way men's brains are wired versus the way women's brains are wired when it comes to pornography is really interesting to me.
Speaking of Stormy Daniels, I had the pleasure of her company last year, it only lasted a minute but it was Heaven!
Chris, academic research has doubtless formulated more sophisticated theories to explain why men tend to like pornography while women tend to dislike it, but the old standby explanation that "men are pigs" remains, perhaps, the most widely accepted one.
Oh, Ken, you used all your cliches up in one post. I work in the adult industry as a writer and I have friends that are performers.
"Most come from broken homes or worse..." so cliche'. I know some girls that were working as scientists in a lab finding cures for infectious diseases and left that to do porn. Nurses, teachers, business owners......I know all of them that left their well-paying "respectable" jobs to do porn.
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