There’s a big difference between something being consensual and something being non-abusive. Just because an actress signs a contract doesn’t mean that she won’t be abused, even if the contract holder never violates the letter or the spirit of the contract.
It’s pretty common in many professions for bosses to abuse their workers in many different ways; the claim is that it is more common and more severe in sex industries. Like Alicorn, I’m glad that your friends didn’t have those experiences, but I’m also under the impression that their experiences are not representative of the norm.
Also, you assume that prostitution is illegal; one of the best arguments for legalizing it is that it seems to significantly reduce the amount of abuse. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t a culture of abuse even in jurisdictions where prostitution is legal, just that there are more recourses to fighting it so that it is lessened.
Just because an actress signs a contract doesn’t mean that she won’t be abused, even if the contract holder never violates the letter or the spirit of the contract.
I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around this—what do you exactly consider ‘abuse’ in the context of pornography? Surely not the sex acts themselves, as they are legalized b contractual consent—part of the job. Do you mean verbal abuse?
Perhaps there is a lower standard for that in pornography, but to be honest from my understanding you will find more verbal abuse in the regular film industry.
And like the film industry, porn is largely built around small companies and many independent agents. At a larger production company the regular workplace rules would apply—sexual and non-sexual harrassement and all that.
But there are other notions of abuse. What about a producer who imports foreign girls for porn who speak poor english and provides them with a nice place to live and drugs? Sounds like a pimp, and yet life is never black and white, as there are plenty of young girls who think this is a fine idea and much more fun than being a strugglin waitress.
But I guess the drug part of those situations is illegal.
As prostitution is actually illegal, it can attract criminal elements and there you certainly have issues with other criminal behaviour—assault and other forms of actual illegal abuse. I believe these types of criminal incidents are rare in pornography because of it’s legal legitimacy.
Contracts rarely discuss tenets of human decency. Whether you work in a cubicle, behind a cash register, or in front of a camera, you can have a boss and co-workers that treat you like garbage. I consider being perpetually insulted, looked down upon and laughed at a form of abuse, and am under the impression that these things are much worse in the porn industry than they are in more “respectable” industries. I am also under the impression that more physical forms of abuse, like manhandling, that still fall short of assault, are also much more common.
I think the power dynamics are different in the non-adult film industry in such a way as to make it unlikely to be worse than the adult film industry. I know two people in different parts of the film industry, and while they’ve had negative experiences, none of the situations they’ve dealt with seem like they wouldn’t have been exacerbated in an adult film environment. Also it seems like the rate and severity of sexual abuse would almost certainly be worse in porn.
I imagine that you are correct in speculating that larger studios deal with less of this, but I certainly don’t know.
There’s a big difference between something being consensual and something being non-abusive. Just because an actress signs a contract doesn’t mean that she won’t be abused, even if the contract holder never violates the letter or the spirit of the contract.
It’s pretty common in many professions for bosses to abuse their workers in many different ways; the claim is that it is more common and more severe in sex industries. Like Alicorn, I’m glad that your friends didn’t have those experiences, but I’m also under the impression that their experiences are not representative of the norm.
Also, you assume that prostitution is illegal; one of the best arguments for legalizing it is that it seems to significantly reduce the amount of abuse. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t a culture of abuse even in jurisdictions where prostitution is legal, just that there are more recourses to fighting it so that it is lessened.
I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around this—what do you exactly consider ‘abuse’ in the context of pornography? Surely not the sex acts themselves, as they are legalized b contractual consent—part of the job. Do you mean verbal abuse?
Perhaps there is a lower standard for that in pornography, but to be honest from my understanding you will find more verbal abuse in the regular film industry.
And like the film industry, porn is largely built around small companies and many independent agents. At a larger production company the regular workplace rules would apply—sexual and non-sexual harrassement and all that.
But there are other notions of abuse. What about a producer who imports foreign girls for porn who speak poor english and provides them with a nice place to live and drugs? Sounds like a pimp, and yet life is never black and white, as there are plenty of young girls who think this is a fine idea and much more fun than being a strugglin waitress.
But I guess the drug part of those situations is illegal.
As prostitution is actually illegal, it can attract criminal elements and there you certainly have issues with other criminal behaviour—assault and other forms of actual illegal abuse. I believe these types of criminal incidents are rare in pornography because of it’s legal legitimacy.
Contracts rarely discuss tenets of human decency. Whether you work in a cubicle, behind a cash register, or in front of a camera, you can have a boss and co-workers that treat you like garbage. I consider being perpetually insulted, looked down upon and laughed at a form of abuse, and am under the impression that these things are much worse in the porn industry than they are in more “respectable” industries. I am also under the impression that more physical forms of abuse, like manhandling, that still fall short of assault, are also much more common.
I think the power dynamics are different in the non-adult film industry in such a way as to make it unlikely to be worse than the adult film industry. I know two people in different parts of the film industry, and while they’ve had negative experiences, none of the situations they’ve dealt with seem like they wouldn’t have been exacerbated in an adult film environment. Also it seems like the rate and severity of sexual abuse would almost certainly be worse in porn.
I imagine that you are correct in speculating that larger studios deal with less of this, but I certainly don’t know.