Sharply rebuking industrial porn from a pro-sex perspective
[Update: I've fixed the broken links to Laura's site. --fl]
Slow learner that I am (ok, also busy non-blogging-life person that I am too) I'm still recovering from the loss of my beloved old Windows/Dell laptop, not to mention the intriguing-but-frustrating adoption of a so-simple-only-a-child-can-use-it Macintosh.
Consequently I've been terribly remiss in visiting folks in my blogroll. Which is a shame because -- even when you don't agree -- there are so many thought-provoking insights to be had there.
For instance Laura of Laura the Tooth (who I rarely disagree with, and completely agree with here) sharply rebukes the industrial pornographers that blight her corner of the planet. What's pretty refreshing about Tooth's take is that it's not about *what* people do, or who buys it, or whether the content itself is moral, prurient, esthetic, or even interesting. Instead it's about safety, compensation, and who benefits.
Many "pro-sex" feminists miss the point when they defend the porn industry. as a "pro sex" feminist myself, i do think that the porn industry has a right to exist, if only to preserve the value of free speech. but the way it works now--it ought to be shut down. i mean it.
i don't want porn companies shut down because of "obscenity" reasons. i want them shut down for the lack of safety standards and absurdly low pay for circus sex acts. i want them shut down because they make the talent sign health and safety waivers, and because you don't get residuals for the work you did that gets resold as stills and repackaged in compilations.
to me, this is strictly a bread and butter issue. that's where the porn industry is truly obscene. in every other industry, there are regulations in place to make sure that workers are not unfairly compromising their health and safety on the job. even the burger flipper at macdonald's enjoys more government protection than most of the talent in the porn industry. and that's pretty fucking sad.
many porn talent defend their work, saying that they enjoyed it and that they consented anyway--who am i to judge? but they miss my point. i don't give a shit about their enjoyment. it's not an issue, because people's desires are so varied across the spectrum. a burger flipper doesn't have to enjoy her/his work to receive government protection. what's important is the simple justice of making a living without compromising your health and safety. can porn actors (with the exception of talent that run their own websites and own their content) say this? hell no.
i'm not going into the prejudices that porn profits from. i'm not going to discuss why porn is so racist, misogynist, and homophobic. it's a business, and if there's a buck to be made selling shit, it's going to be on the market. but we regulate businesses, because there are some things even businesses aren't allowed to do to make a buck.
I really appreciate this critique of the sex industry in general, and industrial porn in particular.
Tooth is able to bring this perspective *precisely* because she's unromantically sex-positive. Neither shocked nor overwhelmed by the circus geek-show nature of porn as produced by her fellow commuters and coffee-stand queue-mates she's able to pierce through to the fundamentals of the work and ask the questions that really, *really* need to be asked. Are you paid well? Do you receive residuals? Are you subjected to unsafe conditions? Unreasonable hours?
Looking at sex workers as *workers* she's able to cut past the question of whether they're being sexually exploited and ask if they aren't really just being *exploited!* And that's pretty cool.
On any given day I'm sure you're going to find farm-workers who enjoy the work. Growing up in coal country I knew guys who loved mining -- enough so that even when their backs were broken by cave-ins and their chests wracked with black lung all they ever wanted to do, the reason they wanted to get better, was so they could go back underground. Same with crab fishermen in Alaska. I've even met a couple of bill collectors and phone solicitors who've said they loved their work. And so it's not surprising that some, maybe many, possibly (though not likely) even all in the industrial porn workforce love their work too.
So what? It's still work. And even in today's America we have certain standards for workplaces. We still place certain responsibilities on employers. And the more I think about it the more I believe the porn industry relies on our collective dismay, right-wing and left, at the product to shield their industry from the pedestrian scrutiny it ought to get.
Final note: Why do I have a feeling that if the industry were forced to meet the same standards as every other industry whether we might not get a higher quality of content out of them in the bargain?
You both make great points. Honestly I've never thought of it from that angle. I'm one of the people who can't get past the sex part of it! But in my defense I've had very little exposure so haven't had much reason to think about it.
Here is a dumb question - what exactly do you mean by "industrial" porn?
[Good question, Elise. Budweiser is to beer as Velveeta is to cheese as Sanka is to coffee as virtually all suburban video store backroom offerings are to porn: mass produced, lowest-common-denominator commodities that benefit not from higher quality of content but from higher quality of distribution and marketing. Like all industrial products industrial pornographers saturate the market with insipid stuff like "Little Anal Annie Part XXIV" to such an extent that customers are often unaware that porn -- like beer, cheese, or coffee) could come any other way. And that in turn makes it very difficult for anything with higher quality production and content values like, say, Tony Comstock's Comstock Films, to get a toehold on the shelves. Does that help? Thanks, Elise. --fl]
Even in a small manufacturing setting, safety issues can be ignored. Quite often it would have to be an employee who would call in OHSA after complaints to the employer, before the company would change. I would think the employees of the porn industry would have to demand safety and act on it. The employee would have to think its their right. I don't know what the legality of making porn films is, but if speaking out or reporting to the FEDS would put themselves in jeopardy, I could understand why the would not report safety or royalty issues.
[I agree they might have more problems in other jurisdictions, but at least in the Los Angelese area where most of the porn you see in America is produced there don't appear to be many legal obstacles to producing the stuff. There's not much oversight either, though. The California state legislature has rumbled a couple of times in the direction of worker safety. For instance they mandated that performers use condoms unless they were willing to sign the waivers. Tooth points out, however, that producers are simply refusing to hire anyone who won't sign the waivers so that's not even been a speed-bump for them. I still think the biggest issue is that people get squicked about the *product* and so legislators who propose more thorough or more specific regulations for *production* become easy targets for talk-radio mockery and what-shall-I-fulminate-about-today editorialists. Thanks, Five. --fl]
RE: Residuals
Ms. Tooth might want to have a look at the SAG Ultra low budget agreement.
[I know Tooth is connected to the Hollywood periphery so she'd be familiar with the SAG's low-end contracts. We can always ask her (you there, Tooth?) but I'm guessing she factored that in to her remarks. I, on the other hand, am not very familiar with the film industry, but if I were a sympathetic and enterprising legislator or legislative aid I might look into inserting language into a bill somewhere that defined porn actors as stunt men and women. I know stuntmen don't get off easy but they *do* have protection, *plus* it would give legislators a little insulation from 'wingers. For instance, "This rule is meant to prevent bodily-fluid exchange on *boxing* movie sets! You've just got a dirty mind." :-) Thanks, Tony. --fl]
Figleaf, thanks to you and Laura for posting on this issue. As you said, so few commentators can get past the morality of porn to realize that the working conditions and employee practices of some companies in this industry violate federally mandated labor standards.
Here is some information that may be useful to you or other readers interested in learning more about sex workers.
[Cool! Thanks, Kochanie! --fl]
RE: Residual and Stunt Performers
Stunt performers are covered by SAG agreements which is to say on productions with budgets under $200,000 that move fewer than 100,000 DVDs, the producer own all rights in exchange for a one-time payment of $100/day.
[Thanks, Tony. So considering how small a budget the average porn is shot for, they're all going to fall into that category. Still, what are the specs for stunt-work safety? (I'm not holding my breath since I suspect that answer too is "little to none.") --fl]
Comparing what goes on on a porn set to what goes on on a movie set is like comparing what goes on on a porn set to what goes on in people's bedrooms. In either case, whatever similarities there might be, they are outweighed 100:1 by the differences.
[Yeah, I figured. Which actually sort of begs the question why the L.A. industrials have little incentive to invest more in their productions. :-) Thanks, Tony. --fl]
I recently discovered Laura the Tooth's essay, and wrote a long post there explaining my agreement and my opposition to certain points there. While I do concur with her main points that the porn industry could use some degree of regulation to protect the safety and workplace conditions of the talent, and that the deplorable rate of compensation must be improved greatly, I do happen to disagree strongly with some of her criticisms of so-called "pro-porn feminists" and especially the work of Sharon Mitchell, the founder and current director of AIM Medical Foundation.
Does she not understand the basic fundamental fact that in a country where the dominant belief among our political leaders on the subject of sexual expression and porn is to wipe it out of existence, that even the most well meaning regulations designed for protection will be exploited and exaggerated by the authorities to censor ALL or MOST sexual expression...including the types of "safer, more superior quality" content that she would rather they produce??
And while I do think that there are a few who call themselves "pro-porn" feminists (and other "pro-porn" libertarians, too) who are unwilling to tackle the economic exploitation issue, that doesn't mean that there aren't those both within and outside the industry who aren't willing to push for better working conditions and better compensation. The main problem, however, is that as long as sexual expression and porn are considered beyond the pale for legitimate art and expression, and that sex work is still considered as fundamentally different from other forms of labor to be treated more harshly, then those who perform such work will never be able to claim the same worker protections as other workers take for granted (including the right to form unions or use the full state powers to claim just compensation). Unfortunately, by simply dismissing those who would protect the right of performers to choose for themselves which acts they would want to perform and insisting on the State's right to impose those choices (such as mandatory condom usage), I believe that Laura sets back her own cause.
Personally, I think the issue is best fought within a more radical view of analyzing and opposing the institiution of capitalism as a whole, and extending the radical critique of having greater worker control over the means and ends of production into the sexual realm. Merely shaming "pro-porn feminists" and calling on the State to impose overbroad regulations just to impose certain production values and tastes is not my idea of empowering talent.
But, this is only my opinion...on the whole, for the reasons Figleaf gave, I still much prefer Laura's critique to that of the Radfem Antiporn Caucus "porn degrades women/creates sexbots/enables rape" meme. At the very least, she gives a damn about their legitimate efforts.
Anthony
[I'm aware of the different factors you outline, Anthony, and I agree many of them are problematic. Rather than try to thread them I'm sticking with my point that sex work is still work, and that if people would just stop popping their eyes or tee-heeing about it they'd find that rules that apply to every other business can apply just as well to the porn industry, without crippling it any more (ok, or any less for my libertarian readers) than they cripple any other industry. Thanks! --fl]