Sex Work Assumptions

I'm a public speaker. My area of expertise? Porn performance, production, and media. These days I speak mainly at universities as part of Gender Studies courses that are titled something like PORNOGRAPHY:  SEX, GENDER, POWER & [RE]PRESENTATION. My presentation is based on my experience as a porn performer with over 10 years in the industry as well as the reading I have done on the subject. The students have given me great feedback and shown me much appreciation for my efforts. SENTENCE I start the talk by letting them in on the reality of the early days of digital cameras, the Internet and dial-up connections - most of the students were toddlers at this time. I speak to the reality of making porn, myth-busting, and stereotype shattering. I share how working in the sex industry has affected my personal and professional life - in a nutshell, it's stigmatization and marginalization by others rather than the sex or the work that has caused me any kind of trauma. Yep, sex work isn't inherently challenging. Everything that surrounds it - the stigma, the judgment, the legal hurdles meant to get the biz out of certain jurisdictions, the criminalization -  is. In my talk, I often bring up examples of independent and mainstream porn performers to highlight how stigmatization of sex work affects all sex workers regardless of pay or fame. Time to add Vivid contract star Jessica Drake to my list of examples. Jessica Drake recently came forward stating that Donald Trump kissed and groped her without her consent and that he (or possibly an employee of his) offered her 10k to have sex with him. The fallout predictably has been filled with whorephobia, sex-shaming and whore-rachical judgmental comments all over the Internet. A lot of it has been based on the faulty rationale that if you have sex on camera as your profession that you will have sex with some off-camera (for money, but not necessarily so). Yes, this is very faulty thinking. 

Assumptions of Sex Workers

Let's go through some common false assumptions that exist in our sex-shaming rape culture.

If you have sex as work, you will have sex with anyone.

If you have sex as work, you give up your right to consent to sex.

If you have sex as work, you don't have the ability to consent to sex.

I think these assumptions played a role in Jessica's situation (and those of many of us who have been propositioned in the same way but by much less notorious individuals— yep, it's happened to me too). Someone assumed that because she had sex ON CAMERA with OTHER PORN ACTORS and with a CREW on the set, then she would be fine with being paid to have sex alone with a complete stranger who had tremendous power over her. Yes, I used the word tremendous on purpose. trump sure has ruined certain words for me. Do people assume this type of thing for other workers and other work? Go through that list and replace HAVE SEX with other verbs and forms of labour. Try it with COOK, CREATE, BUILD, DANCE, ACT, CLEAN, etc... That sort of thinking doesn't hold up for other labour and it should not be used with sexual labour.

Sex in a Working Environment

The sex you have on a porn set (be it mainstream or indie) is very often very different than the kind of sex you have in your personal off-camera life. It's very often very different from the sex the viewer perceives themselves to be seeing. It's also very different than the sex an escort has with a client. Why people thinking that if you are a porn performer you should be comfortable working as an escort and vice versa - I just don't get. This is not the case. The working conditions are very different. The main ones I see: With porn, everyone is working in a professional capacity on set - they are on the job. With escorting there is a client paying for a negotiated service. A client and service provider. A very different dynamic. With porn, the goal is to create a product for the adult public. With escorting the goal is to provide sexual services in private based on the service provider's boundaries. Both can be called sex work but they are very kinds of work. It boggles my mind that people don't get this. But since they don't let me expand a bit with some of the points I make in my presentations about my porn experiences. If only to get it off my chest in print. ;-) When you shoot porn you are rarely alone. At the bare minimum, there is a camera. More often it's in a room full of people. There is your scene partner - another worker. Both of you (or more if it is a group scene) are there not to be turned on and get it on, but to bring your sexual energy to a specific scenario. How that happens is so individual. Then there is the crew - a couple of camera people taking still and shooting video. You might have an audio person and lighting person. In terms of the independent porn I shot, we were usually at least 4 people (me, my husband, a female friend, and her boyfriend/husband). My husband usually had the most say in how the shoot would go as he was behind the camera. This was discussed beforehand and based on the particular niche we were a part of (amateur porn with a focus on the swinger lifestyle and a few fetishes - feet, nylons and glasses). People hate to hear it, but I was there to work. Yes, that work entailed sexual activity, but the goal was not pleasure. The goal was the creation of content for the paying members of my website. The goal was to do something I enjoyed in hopes that it would financially support me and my partner. 

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