How to Make Love Like a Movie Producer

I think porn actor Jerry Butler said it best in Vanity Fair, "You see underpaid, overworked girls who are doing anal, and a lot of them are being coerced into it - nobody's actually being pistolwhipped - people pistolwhip themselves - they are victims of their own carelessness, and self-aggression, and excuses."

I guess my big criticism for porn directors is that they don't really care that their performers are off-kilter, emotionally drained and often physically numb during filming. Or that the acts are painful and unhealthy (nearly disastrous for women, especially since Viagra and the Energizer Erection appeared in the 90's). But I imagine an industry that brings relief to millions across America doesn't do that much for its own participants. This numbness Butler alludes to is pretty common among a whole bunch of people who are trying to avoid the fact that they're making a lot of money but none of them feel that great doing it.

And sometimes they're not making that much money anyway. Yes, porn brings in $10 billion annually, tax-free. (What other industry can claim this kind of profit margin?) But the margin appears when directors skimp on set and costumes and pretty much everything. Considering a top actor can do 200 films in a single calendar year, what's the take-home benefit? Any girl who gets $2000 for five hours of cold, painful sex with multiple partners would consider it a poor payoff. And then to get up and do the same thing the next day? There's a reason most of these women don't have degrees in economics. Any cost-benefit analysis suggests that if you take your health and well-being into account, you're really better off flipping burgers at Mickey-D's.
(Unless you're flipping burgers into vats of trans fats, in which case it might be a draw.)

But then again, most women do know that, they don't need a degree to know it. Which brings me back to the beginning: these kids are deranged and self-destructive. And the producers don't care, because they know that's what it takes to make it, and anyway, what does it matter why people do what they do so long as they do it?

Earlier on I said that I had nothing against porn, but I was lying. What I meant was, I don't think it's gross to get off on watching other people do it. In fact, I think it's biological and pretty unavoidable. So why do we get freaked out about it? Sex rites used to be a big part of many (admittedly deposed) religions. Of course, those were the days before AIDS - and before Christianity became a religio-political institution. (Not to say other religions don't have the same status.)

Of course, we live in a world where it would be heinously awkward to greet our neighbor after a hard night of ritualistic group fucking in his basement. (I imagine.) Also, I'm conveniently not answering the question of why, if our natural impulse is to watch healthy, happy couples enjoying consensual sex, porn has evolved in the direction of interracial anal gang-bangs. That last is a question I'd rather not answer. Ever. I am all for putting human nature under the microscope, and when things get too disturbing, turning off the light.