Porn Actresses: Most Careers Are Short, Few Are Lucrative (explicit language)

Sharon A. Abbott is a social scientist who interviewed porn producers, directors, company owners, magazine editors, agents, makeup artists, camera operators, 19 actors and 31 actresses to understand why performers enter and stay in a porn career. Her analysis, “Motivations for Pursuing an Acting Career in Pornography”, appears in Sex for Sale: Prostitution, Pornography, and the Sex Industry (2000, pages 17-34).

Popular beliefs maintain that the lure of “easy money” draws people, particularly the young, to the world of pornography. This belief is supported by trade and fan magazines that glamorize the industry by focusing on the lavish lifestyles of its members. While the industry cultivates the idea of porn as profitable, income varies greatly by individual. Furthermore, rather than “easy money”, respondents reported that most of the work is tiring, boring, and physically exhausting. Like prostitutes, a few make a great deal of money while most make a modest or meager living…

The most common scene combines oral sex and penile-vaginal intercourse, and pays, on average, $500. Though the pay is high per hour, income is limited by the amount of work actresses are offered; this money must often stretch between extended periods of no work…

In addition, particularly at the “professional level”, actresses must spend a major portion of their income on their appearance. Cosmetic surgeries…are the norm in the business… Appearances at industry parties…often require costumes… Even the HIV testing, required every 30 days in order to work, must be paid for out of pocket…

[P]articipants in amateur productions are often paid little, if anything at all…

For women, erotic dancing presents an opportunity to enter the porn industry. Dancers are often informed that they can make more money stripping if they appear in a few pornographic videos, and if a dancer has established a name for herself, she may be recruited by the porn industry…

If stripping can lead to porn, the reverse is true as well. It is rare for a big-name actress not to “dance” (strip) at least periodically. Dancing provides an opportunity to increase recognition and fan appeal, and thus, to make oneself more “profitable” to the industry…

Increased recognition, however, can have negative effects on an actress’s career. Porn companies are continually searching for “fresh” faces in order to appeal to both new and old viewers. Actresses who are “overexposed” in videos, magazine layouts, and dancing appearances are assumed to be unable to offer much appeal for viewers since their images become too familiar… The ingredients for having a successful career are the very things that can end one…

As one actress explained:

Girls have a shelf life of nine months to two years, unless you are different. Like me, I am Asian, so it helps. Men stay forever. It is different for a man. If he can perform, he can stay in. There are guys that have been in the business ten or fifteen years.

Furthermore, as Levy found in the “straight” film industry, popular successful actresses are younger on average than their male counterparts, suggesting the beauty norms held by both producers and audiences. In both the straight and adult industries, actors are able to age, while actresses are replaced by younger, newer talent…

Although the industry is dependent on fans for survival, many of the respondents reported a fairly negative image of the imagined viewer… Ironically, then, actresses and actors are motivated in part to receive recognition from a group they know little about and often disparage. In addition, they reported little pride in the products they produce. Like most artifacts in the “sleaze industry”, porn is disposable, mass-produced, fungible, and easily forgotten… Unlike the “straight” industry, actors and actresses are paid a flat fee for their performances, and receive no royalties for successful projects.