Susannah Breslin visits a porn shoot and discovers eight secrets about what really happens behind the scenes on the set of a porn movie.

As a wise porn star once said, “Porn is all smoke and mirrors.” Same as Hollywood, the adult movie industry in the San Fernando Valley is in the business of figuring out what Americans’ dreams are and delivering their fantasies back to them in cinematic form. It will come as no surprise to most to hear that not everything you see in an adult movie is as it seems. But what really happens behind the scenes on the set of a porn movie?

1. Marathon Sex

It’s not uncommon, especially on the sets of bigger budget adult movies, for performers, male and female, to have sex for two hours at a time. That may be one thing if you’re Tantric sex freaks doing it in the privacy of your own home, but try hanging off the side of a fire truck going at it in the midday sun while a crew of 20 looks on. No cake walk for the ladies, surely, but guys who can keep it up for that long must be phallic Olympians. Read more

This should be common sense: legalizing sex work both reduces sexually transmitted diseases and human trafficking. Despite the claims of authoritarians everywhere, prohibition never eliminates victimless “crimes,” such as prostitution, gambling or drug use. It only drives them underground.  Moreover, prohibition often makes the banned activities profitable enough that criminal enterprises spring up to take advantage of the new, unregulated markets that the government has created.

The debates around legalizing sexwork have been going on for years. And two of the big arguments against it are claims that sexwork increases the rates of sexually transmitted infections and leads to trafficking. Sexwork advocates say that these are the result of it being illegal and that, if we legalized it, things would improve.

Kate McCombs, one of my former sex education workshop presenters, has been living in Australia and blogging for mysexprofessor.com. She has a post about the effects of legal sexwork in the state of Victoria, Australia. And wouldn’t you know it- legalizing sexwork works! Read more

Lili Radloff argues that the problem with porn is its poor quality.

You know how people are always going on about the bad acting in porn movies? I don’t get it. I mean technically these people aren’t actors. They’re professional… er, lovers. Which means the more pertinent question should be: “why are porn stars so bad at sex?”

I was struck by this again when I watched a wee bit of porn this weekend (strictly for work purposes of course). As usual I was slightly put off by the bad lighting, terrible hair and make-up – good heavens those nails! – cheesy, very unsexy scenarios and the undertone of female humiliation (more about this later).

Mostly I was just stunned by the lack of technique displayed by the performers and the lack of eroticism of it all. The kisses looked gross, the cunnilingus looked painful and the actual penetration looked chafey. (Women giving blowjobs excepted – they were pretty good). Read more

I couldn’t agree more. I realize that most porn videos are meant to be exciting and entertaining for men and are not intended to be documentaries or sex education. However, most of them are so unrealistic, that they’re just not erotic to me. Also, as Lili Radloff says, the sex techniques are often just bad or ridiculous.

Generally, the only porn I like are the amateur videos – the real ones, not the fake “amateur” videos. Those are the only ones where the reactions of the women to what’s happening ring true enough that I can relate to it and get turned on.

What do men pay prostitutes to do? It’s more than just sex, according to a former street prostitute.

When I worked as a street prostitute, men paid me to do things you’d never imagine — like pretend to be their girlfriend and take me on all-expense paid trips.

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A Lexus stops. The guy is dark haired, maybe 40, a little too distracted for my comfort. I go with him to a room though I worry he is a nut. We get to some small room on the West side and his thing is making me wear a negligee and act like I enjoy it. Why does he pay for this? I don’t relish this silk, lace, oohing and ahhing routine but there is nothing perverted about it. You’d think he’d get a girlfriend. He says he’s single. He is a medical supplies salesmen and I let him pay me in syringes. Read more

Female sex tourism in Senegal attracts women who will pay for romance with Senegal’s young men.

Women — often white, European and “of a certain age” — flock solo to Senegal’s shores year-round for what one hotel manager called “the three ‘S’s: sun, sea and sex.”

The growth of Senegal’s female sex tourism has its roots in poverty and the lack of jobs for the country’s young men. Senegal’s unemployment for youths is estimated at 30 percent, according to the International Labor Organization, and the average person in Senegal earns about $3 a day, according to the World Bank.

“It’s a question of survival. Life is hard. If I didn’t have these women, I’d be struggling,” said Moussa, a 31-year-old dreadlocked drum player who has been “dating” female tourists since 2003. Read more

Women, like men, are paying for sex. Monica Shores explains why.

Just because it’s not talked about doesn’t mean it’s not happening: Women, like men, are paying for sex. Recent years ushered in the prominence of feminist sex shops and sex worker rights activism, causing women across the country to think about the sex industry in new ways.

Armed with expendable income and encouragement to claim their right to sexual pleasure, women could become consumers in a field previously reserved for men. However, the notion of a female client is not entirely new. Circa 1980s American Gigolo paved the way for the 2009 HBO series Hung, and Xaviera Hollander’s bestselling memoir of the ’70s, The Happy Hooker, describes several women who were regulars of her call girl agency. Read more

Paying for sex is no longer a male preserve. Mary-Anne Toy explores the world of male escorts and why more women want their services. I just don’t see this as a growing trend myself because, as a sex industry lobbyist points out in the article “women don’t buy sex, they don’t need to. If they want sex, they can just go get it for free wherever they want.”

She is well educated, well spoken and very well groomed: an attractive blonde in her 30s used to men hitting on her in bars. So why did ”Eva”* pay a man to have sex with her? And how did that encounter lead her, a single mother with a full-time professional job, into secretly running a male escort business?

About two years ago, fed up with internet dating and the desultory randomness of the bar scene, but missing male company, Eva toyed with the idea of using a male escort.

Ignoring the storm of censorial voices inside her head, all screaming variations of ”nice girls don’t do that” and worse, she started searching online. Read more