Gallery
They are called porn performers for a reason. What they do to make sex look enjoyable takes work and talent and they do this even if they aren’t feeling it for the other person, or have other things on their mind, or would rather just not be at work. Like all work, innit? They also have to be pretty fit and athletic: sexing in positions that just wouldn’t be that comfortable in real life, but look great on camera.
Some things are so common in porn that you might think it’s ‘normal’ and that’s what everyone does in real life. For example cumming (ejaculating) is very popular in porn, but not everyone likes it really. Just as in films and TV shows the sex that they show is usually the same and in the same order: ; clothes off; ‘‘; and ??. This website is all about how this script for sex can make it harder to have more consensual and enjoyable sex.
Porn is really good at showing lots of people having what looks like very pleasurable sex. However it’s really bad at teaching how to actually have really pleasurable sex. In order to have really great sex the most important thing is to work out what it is you want (and don’t want) and to try and find a way to communicate this to someone else.
Typically the performers and the director will have conversations about what they want to happen and not happen in the scene before it starts. Sometimes this is done using contracts, sometimes it’s a checklist, sometimes there’s a conversation before the day of the shoot, sometimes a conversation before the shoot, and sometimes there’s conversations during the shoot. If they’re really good, they would do all of these. It’s rare that any of this is shown in porn, but most performers are consenting to what’s happening.
However, this is not always the case. There have been lots of allegations of non-consensual practice on set over the last few years and porn has been having their for quite some time. Lots of performers have reported that various non-consensual things happened to them at work. Things like: sex going beyond the boundaries of what was agreed; having to work with people that they didn’t agree to work with; the environment not being safe or private; being put at physical risk; being put in emotionally distressing or triggering situations. (If you want to read more about this stuff, has been all over this at Jezebel and has been doing a brilliant job, thank you Tracy.)
