We’d like to share more excellent material from Against Pornography, a website by Maggie Hays.
See also:
Ex-Porn Star Shelley Lubben Talks about Days on the Set: Tedious, Intoxicated, Painful, Risky
“In the world of hardcore sex, an average day on the set for a porn actress is a long and tedious process. Women are told to come in around 8 am for makeup but it’s only to make sure porn actresses arrive on time to work. Porn stars have a habit of arriving late because they’re often hung over from drugs or alcohol from the night before…
“While waiting around, jaded porn performers usually end up in the rest rooms with bottles of alcohol and lines of speed or outside in their cars for a heroin fix or gathered in the back yard with other actors to smoke marijuana.
“To add to the mind-numbing process, women are never able to experience sexual pleasure because of the continuous cutting during sex scenes. In the background the director constantly yells, ‘cut’ and the flow of action is interrupted in order to get a better shot, adjust lighting or to wipe up bodily fluids. Repeatedly pornographers stop the scenes and ask actors to ‘freeze’ in position during very hardcore sex acts, which causes great physical and emotional pain for porn actresses…
“Porn is harder than prostitution, where you are treated nice if you are in the luxurious side of it. Porn was totally degrading and shattering. None of the men in prostitution treated me sexually like the men in porn did…”
Jenna Jameson’s Tragic Backstory; Seeking Virgins with Paris Hilton
…Jameson had acquired a devastating crystal-meth (amphetamine) habit. It nearly killed her. Rescued by a friend, she was sent back to her father to recuperate: she was so emaciated that she had to be put on the plane in a wheelchair, and when he came to meet her at the airport, he didn’t recognise her.
Jenna Jameson’s Cautions to Would-Be Porn Stars
Jameson says porn has more pitfalls “than nearly any other occupation.” Drugs is one…
Interview with Ex-Porn Star Traci Lords: Abused as a Child; High on the Set; Power, Not Arousal; Bad Pay
The Science Behind Pornography Addiction
[Performers in the sex industry] have high rates of substance abuse, typically alcohol and cocaine, depression, borderline personality disorder which is a particularly serious disorder and dissociative identity disorder which used to be called multiple personality disorder. The experience I find most common among the performers is that they have to be drunk, high or dissociated in order to go to work.
Carol Smith, former porn performer, quoted in Not For Sale
Cited in Biting Beaver; see our reviews of essays in this book
“What I saw were women just like myself who were desperate, addicted to drugs, homeless, and I’m sure probably at least 80 percent of them suffered from sexual abuse as children. I saw them re-living their childhood experiences by getting into that industry. They were looking for attention, pleasing men, and being abused. And that’s all they know.
Raffaëla Anderson and the French Porno Industry (explicit language)
The pornography industry is just a place where a lot of victims relive their abuse, where they can continue to destroy themselves like their abusers destroyed them. That’s what is the most disturbing to me. The incest, rapes, child abuse and neglect that become the springboard for a lot of participants to enter the industry.
Kara Nox, adult film star, on “What don’t you like about porn?”
A: …Mostly, it’s the attitude among many men that I’m subhuman. The degradation of women is getting worse. Conditions for women on set are becoming more and more dangerous. As porn grows, more men with Neanderthalean views of women are getting power as talent, and producers. The results are increased acceptance of violence onset. Women face enough danger outside of porn. It seems as though many of th
e men we fear are now doing porn, and they legitimize their misogyny by saying it’s for entertainment value. That scares the shit out of me, because it means there are even more troglodytes watching this, and geting off on women being hurt.
Martin Amis: “A rough trade”
“Rocco has far more power in this industry than any actress,” said Stagliano, pleased to be pulling one back for the boys (generally speaking, men are the also-rans of porno). “I was the first to shoot Rocco. Together we evolved toward rougher stuff. He started to spit on girls. A strong male-dominant thing, with women being pushed to their limit. It looks like violence but it’s not. I mean, pleasure and pain are the same thing, right? Rocco is driven by the market. What makes it in today’s market place is reality.”
Behind the Scenes of Deep Throat with Linda Lovelace
During the filming of Deep Throat, actually after the first day, I suffered a brutal beating in my room for smiling on the set. It was a hotel room and the whole crew was in one room. There was at least 20 people partying, music going, laughing, and having a good time. Mr. Traynor started to bounce me off the walls. I figured out of 20 people, there might be one human being that would do something to help me and I was screaming for help, I was being beaten, I was being kicked around and again, bounced off of walls. And all of a sudden the room next door became very quiet. Nobody, not one person came to help me.
Child Porn Mogul: A View from the Inside (explicit language)
He wiped off the knife, and went back upstairs. He and a set man returned, wrapped me in blankets, and brought me to his private doctor’s office. My vagina was stitched up in a clean white room, with precision to prevent scarring. The doctor smiled a lot, told jokes and acted as if nothing was unusual about my situation.
“Trade – A Film Brings Sex Trafficking Home”
Trade makes it clear that traffickers do not operate in a vacuum. Theirs is a complex and determined industry, enslaving both women and children through coercion, violence, and drugs. It is painfully apparent in the film that there are often moments when everyday people could intervene – but choose not to…
Types of Porn and Their Occupational Safety Risks (explicit)
Porn: A Deadly Occupation
RAME, “the official website of rec.arts.movies.erotica”, keeps track of porn stars who have died. Here are many of the performers from their list…
Survivor of childhood sexual abuse and ex-pornography performer, Jersey Jaxin was recently interviewed by former porn actress and anti-porn crusader Shelley Lubben. During this interview, Jersey explained why she quit porn, how harmful to one’s health the porn industry can be, and how dehumanizing and degrading the industry is to women…
[From Shelley’s introduction:] She made me cry during our meeting quite a bit but especially when I asked her what she did in her off time when she wasn’t doing porn and she replied, “I hold my roommate and we just cry”…
Jersey: “I’m just tired of the industry. The way that they treat us as though we’re just pieces of meat. That we don’t have a mind and our body is everybody’s and we have no soul…”
Shelley: “You told me some pretty scary things about the porn industry.”
Jersey: “Guys punching you in the face. You have semen… Twenty or thirty guys all over your face, in your eyes. You get ripped. Your insides can come out of you. It’s never ending. You’re viewed as an object not as a human with a spirit. People don’t care. People do drugs because they can’t deal with the way they’re being treated.”
Shelley: “What percentage of porn people use drugs?”
Jersey: “Seventy five percent and rising. Have to numb themselves… There are specific doctors in this industry if you go in for a common cold, they’ll give you vicodin, viagra, anything you want because all they care about is money. You are a number. You’re bruised. You have black eyes. You’re ripped. You’re torn. You have your insides coming out of you. It’s not pretty and foofoo on set. You get hurt.”
“The main thing going around now is crystal meth, cocaine and heroin… You have to numb yourself to go on set. The more you work, the more you have to numb yourself. The more you become addicted, the more your personal life is nothing but drugs… Your whole life becomes nothing but porn.”
“I was a drinker. I drank a lot. Vodka was my drug. Vodka was my numbing toy. Before sets, after sets, and if it was a set where people didn’t care, they’d have it there waiting.”
Shelley: “Do pornographers provide drugs?”
Jersey: “Some of them do. Some of them do it in front of you. I used to have a problem with cocaine that I overcame. It’s hard when they’re putting it in front of you and saying, ‘Do this…’”
Shelley: “Talk about some of the degradation the women have to go through.”
Jersey: “You may see a 45-minute set that took us 13 hours… We’re ripped, we’re tired, we’re sored, we’re bleeding, we’re cut up, we have dried semen all over our faces from numerous guys and we can’t wash it off because they want to take pictures. You have this stuff all over you and they’re telling you, ‘Hold it!’”
“You can say anything you want [stop or pain etc] and they don’t listen. There’s the ultimate thing where you squeeze their leg to ease up and most of them don’t care. They have another scene to go to. It’s all about the money. They’ve forgotten who they are and they don’t care who they’re hurting…”
See also:
Ex-Porn Star Shelley Lubben Talks about Days on the Set: Tedious, Intoxicated, Painful, Risky
“In the world of hardcore sex, an average day on the set for a porn actress is a long and tedious process. Women are told to come in around 8 am for makeup but it’s only to make sure porn actresses arrive on time to work. Porn stars have a habit of arriving late because they’re often hung over from drugs or alcohol from the night before…
“While waiting around, jaded porn performers usually end up in the rest rooms with bottles of alcohol and lines of speed or outside in their cars for a heroin fix or gathered in the back yard with other actors to smoke marijuana.
“To add to the mind-numbing process, women are never able to experience sexual pleasure because of the continuous cutting during sex scenes. In the background the director constantly yells, ‘cut’ and the flow of action is interrupted in order to get a better shot, adjust lighting or to wipe up bodily fluids. Repeatedly pornographers stop the scenes and ask actors to ‘freeze’ in position during very hardcore sex acts, which causes great physical and emotional pain for porn actresses…
“Porn is harder than prostitution, where you are treated nice if you are in the luxurious side of it. Porn was totally degrading and shattering. None of the men in prostitution treated me sexually like the men in porn did…”
Jenna Jameson’s Tragic Backstory; Seeking Virgins with Paris Hilton
…Jameson had acquired a devastating crystal-meth (amphetamine) habit. It nearly killed her. Rescued by a friend, she was sent back to her father to recuperate: she was so emaciated that she had to be put on the plane in a wheelchair, and when he came to meet her at the airport, he didn’t recognise her.
Jenna Jameson’s Cautions to Would-Be Porn Stars
Jameson says porn has more pitfalls “than nearly any other occupation.” Drugs is one…
Interview with Ex-Porn Star Traci Lords: Abused as a Child; High on the Set; Power, Not Arousal; Bad Pay
The Science Behind Pornography Addiction
[Performers in the sex industry] have high rates of substance abuse, typically alcohol and cocaine, depression, borderline personality disorder which is a particularly serious disorder and dissociative identity disorder which used to be called multiple personality disorder. The experience I find most common among the performers is that they have to be drunk, high or dissociated in order to go to work.
Carol Smith, former porn performer, quoted in Not For Sale
Cited in Biting Beaver; see our reviews of essays in this book
“What I saw were women just like myself who were desperate, addicted to drugs, homeless, and I’m sure probably at least 80 percent of them suffered from sexual abuse as children. I saw them re-living their childhood experiences by getting into that industry. They were looking for attention, pleasing men, and being abused. And that’s all they know.
Raffaëla Anderson and the French Porno Industry (explicit language)
The pornography industry is just a place where a lot of victims relive their abuse, where they can continue to destroy themselves like their abusers destroyed them. That’s what is the most disturbing to me. The incest, rapes, child abuse and neglect that become the springboard for a lot of participants to enter the industry.
Kara Nox, adult film star, on “What don’t you like about porn?”
A: …Mostly, it’s the attitude among many men that I’m subhuman. The degradation of women is getting worse. Conditions for women on set are becoming more and more dangerous. As porn grows, more men with Neanderthalean views of women are getting power as talent, and producers. The results are increased acceptance of violence onset. Women face enough danger outside of porn. It seems as though many of th
e men we fear are now doing porn, and they legitimize their misogyny by saying it’s for entertainment value. That scares the shit out of me, because it means there are even more troglodytes watching this, and geting off on women being hurt.
Martin Amis: “A rough trade”
“Rocco has far more power in this industry than any actress,” said Stagliano, pleased to be pulling one back for the boys (generally speaking, men are the also-rans of porno). “I was the first to shoot Rocco. Together we evolved toward rougher stuff. He started to spit on girls. A strong male-dominant thing, with women being pushed to their limit. It looks like violence but it’s not. I mean, pleasure and pain are the same thing, right? Rocco is driven by the market. What makes it in today’s market place is reality.”
Behind the Scenes of Deep Throat with Linda Lovelace
During the filming of Deep Throat, actually after the first day, I suffered a brutal beating in my room for smiling on the set. It was a hotel room and the whole crew was in one room. There was at least 20 people partying, music going, laughing, and having a good time. Mr. Traynor started to bounce me off the walls. I figured out of 20 people, there might be one human being that would do something to help me and I was screaming for help, I was being beaten, I was being kicked around and again, bounced off of walls. And all of a sudden the room next door became very quiet. Nobody, not one person came to help me.
Child Porn Mogul: A View from the Inside (explicit language)
He wiped off the knife, and went back upstairs. He and a set man returned, wrapped me in blankets, and brought me to his private doctor’s office. My vagina was stitched up in a clean white room, with precision to prevent scarring. The doctor smiled a lot, told jokes and acted as if nothing was unusual about my situation.
“Trade – A Film Brings Sex Trafficking Home”
Trade makes it clear that traffickers do not operate in a vacuum. Theirs is a complex and determined industry, enslaving both women and children through coercion, violence, and drugs. It is painfully apparent in the film that there are often moments when everyday people could intervene – but choose not to…
Types of Porn and Their Occupational Safety Risks (explicit)
Porn: A Deadly Occupation
RAME, “the official website of rec.arts.movies.erotica”, keeps track of porn stars who have died. Here are many of the performers from their list…