Women in the Porn Industry

Although no one quite agrees if we are living in the aftermath or continuation of the sexual revolution, society has undoubtedly become increasingly accepting of pornography. With over two billion searches for porn every year – a number steadily growing – and 1 in 5 mobile searches seeking adult content, porn is the biggest influence on how our society relates to sex. 

However behind the thousands of sites, millions of videos and billions of viewers, there is an enormous industry pumping out content at high demand. The US industry pulls $13 billion a year, even though over 70% of all porn is consumed for free online. With any industrial boom, ethics are often conveniently overlooked to ensure demand is met with as little competition as possible.

And somewhat unsurprisingly, it is women who bear the inequality, exploitation and mistreatment within the porn industry.

The 2015 documentary Hot Girls Wanted follows the lives of several teen girls who leave their homes to become amateur porn stars in Miami. The documentary initially highlights the girls’ willingness and enjoyment of following a career in porn, with large pay checks and newfound freedom creating the time of their lives. However the most shocking reveal of the film is that amateur girls have a shelf life of “three to six months. Best case scenario, a year, tops.” Most of the girls in the documentary found that work dwindled after a few months, and they had to turn to niche jobs like bondage and “facial abuse” to keep up a steady income.

Gay porn actor Woody Fox has been working in the industry for three years, and told me that men can usually expect around a 10 year career, as men are often considered young and beautiful well into their thirties.

The gender difference doesn’t stop there. Due to difficulty for females to break into the industry, women generally take whatever work is offered, and hence often have limited choices of who they can work with. Rachel Bernard AKA Ava Taylor on Hot Girls Wanted briefly chats about a bad day, feeling like she “couldn’t say no” to working with people she didn’t want to. Fox’s experiences include much more freedom and comfort: “…we choose. I am given five photos of men and I tell them who I will and will not work with.”

When asked what differences he has noticed between the treatment of men and women, Fox’s main example was how porn actors are viewed outside work. “If a gay porn star goes to a gay bar, they are seen as the ‘coolest’ person and people want to be them. However if a female porn star goes to a bar then they are seen as a slut or ‘dirty’”. Even in the straight industry, male talent enjoy longer shelf lives and more comfort their work. “With straight porn, it’s usually about the man dominating the woman; it’s about power and control. Either that or it’s a fetish.”

At 18, the girls in Hot Girls Wanted left the industry disheartened, disgusted and with a surprisingly small amount of money. At 27, Woody Fox is at the peak of his career. Even outside of these examples, it is easy to see that although the industry relies on female sexuality to bring in business, women are valued less than male talent, and – in the least dodgy parts of the industry – frequently forced out of their bodily autonomy to please a largely male audience.

Typing in “The Porn Wars” into Google will reveal the long and tumultuous history of feminist debate about the role of porn in sexism and empowerment. However regardless of pornography’s morality, the industry currently exists in a space where degrading women is a literal day’s work.

Hannah