My brother's bible class was teaching him about "addiction"

[Aractus]

FYI I didn't post pornographic material (the edit description makes it look like I posted porn on here), I posted a documentary that was aired on free to air TV in the UK, and the video I linked was age-restricted (you had to log-in to confirm your age to view it). In response I'll simply give a description of it (because the one on IMDB is totally inaccurate but by all means read it and make up your own minds).

Date My Porn Star...

This documentary takes three porn fans from the UK to the USA to meet and then date their favourite porn stars. Like other documentaries on porn it is not for the faint-hearted as it aims to provide a pretty raw and accurate depiction of the environment that porn is produced in. The other series I'm thinking of is "The Dark Side of Porn". In that series there's an episode called "Dairy of a Porn Virgin" which follows a newcomer to porn. After her very first hardcore shoot (which was a lesbian scene; not her first porn scene, but her first "professional/hardcore" scene) it shows "Frankie" as being very visibly upset (28 minutes in). Afterwards she says "I didn't enjoy that really... at all." Following that scene the producer is shown trying to pressure Frankie to perform anal in the next scene, which she refuses to do. Midway through the filming of the next scene she is also shown to be very visibly upset.

But on to "Date my Porn Star".. before the porn fans leave they are taken to a porn set in the UK, where none of them seem upset or distressed by what they see, and the two straight men seem to enjoy seeing the scene being filmed. After that scene they're shown another scene, a gay scene, being filmed. Danny enjoys it, the other two are somewhat uncomfortable and Jonathan actually leaves the room mid-scene because of his discomfort.

In the USA it's another matter.

Before they leave for the USA, Jonathan says "I'm sure you're going to try ans care us with some of the events, but it's going to be great". They're all looking forward to it.

Danny gets to meet his favourite bisexual porn star, Kevin (not the other Kevin, and that's not his pornstar pseudonym), who is actually straight and doesn't have gay sex at all (his films are actually softcore). Despite this, Kevin is very nice to Danny and spends Sunday with him. He explains that his daughter doesn't talk to him due to his career, and that it's affected a lot of his personal relationships. He also tells Danny that he wants to go in a new direction and leave his porn behind. A quick google search reveals that he did in fact leave his porn persona around the time of the documentary.

Kevin (the porn fan) gets to meet and "date" J.J., who has her own porn production company and is in control of what gets produced, thus her scenes are clearly what she wants to do. J.J. is much more interested in finding out about him than he is in her (in their conversations), and they clearly have little in common. J.J. seems to wish she could be monogamous, whereas Kevin likes having as many women as possible.

Jonathan gets to meed and "date" T.T.. The scene is a "biological incest" theme scene, which he thinks is hot, and afterwards both Danny and Kevin are shocked at the subject content of the scene that Jonathan just saw. Danny reacts by saying "who watches this porn!" Like Kevin and J.J., T.T. seems to be more interested in finding out about Jonathan than he is about her.

They're then taken to a lower-budget set where the porn performers are much less experienced (although it should be noted that they have done porn before, maybe for a few weeks or a few months, but the girls are not veterans). This set pushes all three fans to their breaking points - to see how distressed and upset the girls get while filming, and to see how they're treated by the producers. After their time on that set Danny says "it's disgusting what I saw today, it was absolutely disgusting and heartbreaking what I saw today it was absolutely heartbreaking". And that was just regular "low budget" scenes, it wasn't BDSM or some of the "really hard" stuff. The three of them debate it - do they know what they're doing, are they well informed, who's looking out for their interests? At this point it's also explained to them that there is not enough work in LA to sustain full-time work for female performers (nor for that matter is there for men). The porn producer says that there's about 50 scenes being shot a day across LA and about 500 active female porn-stars. There is plenty more information on this e.g. Aurora Snow says:

People are often surprised to hear that a famous porn star may perform a sex scene, headline a film, and even get on the box cover, all for one flat rate with no residuals. Usually, a female charges $800 to $1,000 for a boy/girl scene, $900 to $1,200 for “backdoor” action, and an additional $100 for each added scene partner. Rates for a girl/girl scene are significantly lower, averaging from $600 to $900. Rates dip even lower yet if it’s an oral-only scene, starting at $250.

Men charge $200 to $600 (almost half that of their female counterparts), though men are hired more frequently. Some male performers have been known to show up for $100. Others provide their equipment for an oral scene for just $50. The cream of the crop usually garners a few hundred more than your average person. Out of the hundreds in the business, only a handful work regularly. Most struggle to work more than a few times a month, which in turn creates a bargaining tool for companies to hire talent at lower rates.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/20...think.html

This highlights the fact that porn performers once upon a time could get as much work as they wanted, but this is no longer the case. That's what Aurora said while she was still active in the industry. This is well known - most porn stars also do regular prostitution, most do not admit this while they're active because the USA is backwards and prostitution is illegal, but it's well known and documented across the web.

For the finale they get to meet ex-porn star Vanessa Balmont. She explains some of the truly horrific things experienced by performers, including that she had to take painkillers in some scenes and was still in pain whilst performing. The men are all shocked and upset by what she has to tell them. It perhaps broke the illusion for them once and for all that performers enjoy the scenes they do, hearing about some of the consequences that the producers clearly don't care about.

All documentaries have an agenda, that's true. These guys all changed their opinions based on what they saw and their "illusions" of what they though porn was had been broken. There are ex-porn stars who do not say they hated their time performing - see Aurora's stuff on thedailybeast.com. But even she levels criticisms - even she admits that she was pressured to perform with a co-star who did not have their A.I.M. STI-test with them (and she refused, and was not even paid a cancellation for wasting her time).

Faced with the reality of porn as it exists today, all three fans were shocked. It's important to note that the documentary never seems to criticise the gay porn industry, in which men are obviously equal performers on set with each other. For "straight" porn it's another matter. The conclusion is simple: it's a sex industry that doesn't pay well, that doesn't offer protection for its workers, and that doesn't care if their workers can earn enough to support themselves or not. It's much like a sex industry in a 3rd world country - primitive and backwards.

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Which is why I'm not terrible interested in the legality of all this, over and above the moral arguments for it which should, ideally but evidently not always in practice, be leading the law.

Well let me use another example then. It's legal for me to go out and have sex with a 16-year old. If I take photos (or video) of that, those depictions are classified as "child pornography" and are illegal.

There should be, and indeed there is (in Australia) some difference between what is legally O.K. in private life and what is legally acceptable in porn.

I agree with you with regards to condoms,

Well no you don't. You've never sent me $1. If you're a Kink viewer you support them and are actively indifferent to their opinion that they don't need to worry about the law or sexual health of their performers.

Getting flogged hurts, but it doesn't harm, especially not when that's what gets you off.

Yes I understand what you're saying. What I was talking about is STIs, anal and vaginal tearing and bleeding, bruising, and persisting with such activities through pain (where in private life most people would choose to stop).

Then- and I know this sounds really bad to read it out of context - the law should be changed. Overly broad rulings like that have no place governing real life.

Yes and I'm telling you that I don't want to see simulated-rape being legalised in Australia. In fact, it shouldn't even be legal in the USA. Just the cost to courts alone that it has had would tell you that it's having a real negative effect on society.