i really don't know that the market is that eager for older sex workers. the people may want to work into their 60s~~ but will there really be that much of a demand for sex workers of that age?

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PETARD!

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For a small start, I've known men who only go for female made porn because it is more genuine and more open. There ARE men who enjoy watching consenting adults' genuine enjoyment, much as many on this site would have you believe otherwise.

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I think that should answer your question.

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Pornography, like any artform, is a filter for--not a cause of--the fuckedupness of society.

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Also, I do question whether feministly-created porn can be consumed in a feminist way. I don't think that our culture, with it's visual consumption/objectification of women, is able to produce images of women that are supposed to be sexually titillating without those images being consumed by men who objectify and consume, two anti-feminist acts. So the consumption of the porn, the way that it's used, negates the feminist pretensions of the production.

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i think what the majority of people "want" is not something they consider thoughtfully, but rather something they accept pretty wholesale when it's shoved at them with the correct consumeristic bells and whistles.

porn, as i read in another article, is the mcdonald's of sex. quick and empty, and boring. porn is so predictable, even the violent hardcore ones are predictable. it's like, ooh, exciting, another woman with a face full of cum getting fucked in the ass while some guy gags her with his cock! ooh, i haven't seen that one in a while! i mean, how many possible variations on that riff can you possibly manage?

most of the time, guys will sit in front of the computer for a few hours at a time, in a daze, clicking through one lead-in screen to another to another to another. it's all mindless and anonymous and totally devoid of interaction with any other human. i see porn in this context as a very anesthesizing influence.

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In no way have I asserted that women in control of porn production are feminist, or portray themselves as such. There are examples, to be sure, but this doesn't serve the bigger picture point here.

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Feminist porn is another thing. And my point wasn't that porn cannot be consumed in non-feminist ways--it's that it isn't. Not the majority of consumers, anyway. So a feminist can watch feminist porn, and that can be a feminist- or woman-neutral act (except perhaps it is potentially a feminist- or woman-friendly act, because it's an enjoyable experience for a feminist and makes money for a feminist producer). But the majority of porn consumers aren't watching porn in ways that are conscious of whether the porn was made in conscientious ways, whether it is a feminist production, and whether they're objectifying and consuming and reducing the performers through their sexualized (male, heterosexual) gaze. That is a decidedly anti-feminist act, and one that has repercussions beyond the production and consumption of the porn itself, because when a man consumes and objectifies women while he masturbates himself to an orgasm, he make objectification and consumption of women a good thing. Which is bad for all women who ever have to deal with him, ever, because it will be easier to objectify them. Obviously he won't see his female secretary the way he sees a porn performer when he goes into work the next day, but the framework for objectification is in place in his mind. That framework and tendency towards objectification is already there in our culture, it's already the normal, dominant mode of living for most men. So his porn consumption (which includes the reduction and objectification of women) perpetuates that dominant, sexist paradigm, even if the porn he's watching was made by feminists, for feminists. Once it's in the capitalist market, the producers lose control of their film and the way it's perceived. Their intentions become meaningless, because they are ignored by most porn consumers. Not meaningless to the feminists watching porn*, not meaningless to the actors who aren't getting exploited on the set--but in the context of a larger cultural medium, meaningless, because the net effect of the film is more than the production of it.

*I cannot conceive of a world in which pornography can actually be feminist, but I'm willing to accept that it might exist.

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Vivid-Alt, Burning Angel, etc. are live-action, hardcore, examples of the "new" alt-porn, as the term is used today.

The Wikipedia article could probably stand to be updated, but serves as a fair roadmap of where the genre has come from... [en.wikipedia.org] And it's apparent that not only the alt-porn aesthetic, but more female-centric production roles are becoming the mainstream.

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THIS. I know all of the feminist arguments for and against porn, all of the capitalistic critiques and all of that, and I think all of them make very valid points in support of their particular argument.

But what I cannot get past is that it is the way it takes an experience that is entirely about human connection, and strips both the "human" and the "connection" from the experience. We are so lacking in human connection as it is these days that taking it away from the one thing that is supposed to be nothing but is just sad to me.

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So is it safe to say you believe that it is impossible for any women to actually chose to be a porn or prostitute? No matter how smart and how much thought went in to it, they are victims that just don't understand or know whats best/right and yet you do understand and know?

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So, it actually is pretty different.

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Should everyone abandon farming because people have been forced into farming jobs, in which they face repeated rapes, almost-surely exposure to STDs, and an inability to quit without getting killed.

There's a huge difference between working conditions and the actual work that one is doing.

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Many women have traumatic abortions/are forced into having an abortion against their will/etcetcetc. But what good feminist would slam a movie that depicts a woman having a non-traumatic abortion, with few negative consequences, as a terrible movie that neglects to tell the full story?

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And prostituted women have enough against them as it is--people tend to see them as slutty sinners who get what they deserve (rather than rape victims who have no choice in their oppression) or happy-go-lucky, beautiful and intelligent and young (and white and straight) high class call girls who are saving up for law school or prefer this to being a secretary. So presenting the former glorifies prostitution, and minimizes the horrible realities of the prostitution trade. And makes it harder for prostituted women to be seen as humans, and makes it harder to get funding to help those women escape slavery, and makes it harder to get people to take seriously the plight of prostituted women.

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Also, given that prostitution is illegal, it's extremely difficult to get good stats on it. I'd wager that very few women who have positive experiences escorting are particularly interested talking to census takers, which skews statistics.

And, again: there is a difference between working conditions and work. Or, more to the point, there is a difference between willingly choosing a profession and being forced into it/enslaved.

There are many people who work happily in factories making clothes, that does not "glorify" working in a clothing factory or minimize the horrible realities of sweatshop workers. I don't see why changing the career to one involving sex makes the terrain so vastly different.

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