* We lie to you. We’re selling a product – the sex, the persona, whatever. Like actors do press tours, everything a porn star (or any other king of sex worker) does on social media is advertising to convince you to buy. So we tell you we love it, that we’re all a happy family, that we think you’re great and thank you for supporting us. Anything to make you click and pay. You would think I wouldn’t have to say this but unfortunately you’re wrong. It’s not real a huge amount of the time. We are paid to lie and behind the scenes it can be very pressurised if you even let a little bit slip that makes things sound less than 100% happy-go-lucky sluts. It’s incredibly stressful if you experience a scene you don’t want to do but can’t really tell anyone because people get pissed off when you ruin their fantasies or they don’t believe you because of the lies the industry sells that we’re all about sex all the time.
So much abuse. Drug abuse, emotional blackmail. Rape is more common than anyone wants to acknowledge and one of the things that made me quit and get intense therapy was the knowledge of how many rape scenes are real. I experienced what was packaged as a “rough sex” scene, I had bruising and tears and it was traumatising. I cried in the scene because my partner (who had his own issues to be fair) was too big for me and not acting his roughness. Our buyers enjoyed it, I was told.
There are so many victims stuck in the industry. You don’t know right away but then you talk, or you watch in between filming and you just know, you hear the rumors …. Buyers have no idea except in the back of their minds that there are so many abused people stuck in the industry, and they don’t want to think about it because it ruins the fantasy. But you have no idea what it does to you when you meet a very young guy glazed out of his poor mind on god knows what, needing drugs to get hard, and underneath it all you realize he’s scared and ashamed. Or the women who do so many scenes but who barely see any money from it, kept poor because keeping them poor keeps them stuck in the industry.
A lot of people work sick. Which is just uncomfortable. So many scenes where someone is hurling into a bucket off camera or running into the bathroom. Fainting isn’t uncommon. Weird sensations like numbness or tight chests or muscles which I guess is drugs or stress or exhaustion.
Other “stars” can be worse than the staff. Because if you make the industry look bad, people start asking questions, they might lose buyers and money. They can push you more and sometimes get away with more under the guise of “encouragement” or “protecting [their] image”.
Young men from all over Asia are heavily exploited. It breaks my heart. So many of these guys are so young and poor and put into uncomfortable gay male scenes.
The trends towards extremer and extremer acts is disturbing and makes me glad I am safe from it. It’s worst in gay male & straight scenes. I have no experience of the former because I’m not a guy, but I’ve heard stories and scene enough footage. It’s just not healthy, emotionally or physically, where things are going. People have become normalised and desensitised to previous stuff, it’s not enough for them, or it gives them the taste for more. So now gaping, extreme stretching and prolapse porn is a very “hot” trend.
When you say this stuff people send you death threats and rape threats, doesn’t matter if you’re a guy or girl. You get told the most vilest things. People are terrified of getting violent threats if they speak out about.
