No Hard Times For Adult Film Biz

Mystique Magazine Online | 11-15-01

[StoneColdGOP]

No Hard Times For Adult Film Biz

Terrorist attacks, war in Afghanistan and a faltering economy are not having an effect on one of the San Fernando Valley's most robust industries: adult videos. Some of the area's top manufacturers of explicit films and DVDs said this week that their orders are up by as much as 20 percent since September 11, while smaller companies and video stores said business has remained steady.

"Our industry is, for the most part, recession-proof," said Jim Monroe, vice president of Van Nuys-based Vivid Video, one of the world's largest producers of explicit adult entertainment. "When times are good people still want to stay home and watch the movies and when times aren't so good, people tend to cuddle up at home even a little bit more."

The Valley has long been home to the booming adult film industry, which generated more than $4 billion in sales and rentals last year nationwide, according to Adult Video News, the industry's main trade paper. Although 2001 sales figures will not be available until December, Adult Video News Editor in Chief Mike Ramone said he doesn't expect any kind of drop in business with more than 11,000 new hard-core titles being released annually.

"I have heard from retailers that immediately after the attack, business went down with everyone staying home glued to the tube," Ramone said. "But then shortly thereafter, it went through the ceiling. I suppose people still need their distractions even in wartime."

Jack Kyser, chief economist of the Economic Development Corp. of Los Angeles County, said the adult film industry has historically weathered hard economic times. "If they had reported as being down, it would be a big surprise," Kyser said. "It's sort of the industry that dare not speak its name but it's one of the strong growth areas. People may not approve but, obviously, there is a demand. It seems to be a very, very solid industry."

According to the Entertainment Industry Development Corp., adult films account for approximately 5 percent to 10 percent of filming permits filed in Los Angeles County. The industry is able to weather tough economic times on the production side because they have small budgets, use small crews and minimal sets. And the financial commitment from the consumer is also minimal. "In a slowing economy, people might not take vacations or buy cars but they still want to go to movies, watch television or rent videos," said Morrie Goldman, vice president of the EIDC.

Monroe said the astonishing rise in popularity of DVDs has added handsomely to Vivid Video's bottom line and to the adult film industry's health overall. "We have seen a continual increase on DVDs the last 12-15 months and we are taking advantage of the technology," Monroe said. "We don't have a [Martin] Scorsese or [Francis Ford] Coppola to add director's comments but the more interactive we make our titles, the better."

Confident of continued strong demand, Canoga Park-based Wicked Pictures has no plans to scale back on the 48 new DVDs and VHS films it produces each year and sells to distributors. "Obviously, September 11 affected everyone to some degree and all anyone was concerned about was watching the news every night to see what was going on," said Wicked Pictures President Steve Orenstein. "Then it started changing when people were looking for anything but the news. Right now, business is good again and going as usual."

The president of a Van Nuys-based printing company that makes boxes for DVDs and videos for more than 200 porn companies said the only concession he has had to make to national events is to design machine-sealed mailing envelopes because of anxiety over the anthrax scare. "With Christmas season coming up, we have seen orders for DVD boxes go way up and we are expecting a very busy Christmas season," he said. "There had already been an increase in home entertainment but now people are really seeking the security of being entertained at home."

[discostu]

Actually there's something pretty normal about women that don't see porn as degrading. The vast majority of the talent in front of the camera is female (then if you broaden to the entire smut industry you've got strip clubs which generally have a 5-2-1 ratio for the dancers - waitresses - everybody else (the only males that work there)). On a rough ratio I'd bet around 60 to 75% of all the smut/ porn industry workers are women (Hef's daughter now run PEI, very well too, has dramatically increased the profitability). Even you can see that not ALL of them are junkies forced to work it by evil pimps (it would be hard to make the quality business decisions Ms. Hefner makes with a needle in her arm).

A really significant number of women work smut/ porn to put themselves through college. There aren't a lot of 16 hour a week jobs where a person can pull down a few hundred bucks a week (a good dancer in a good club can pull down $200 in a four hour night, without prosituting herself, that's a net of $800 a week on four nights work, that's a net of 41K a year, which is a little less than my gross for a lot less work, actual porn actresses will make a lot more and work much less). It's very nice for the college goer, plenty of money and easy to schedule classes around.

Most of the folks I've talked to that have worked in the industry (mostly strip club, met a few porn folks on the net) feel that if there's anyone being degraded it's the customer. Which is the case in all entertainment really, we spend a lot of money to be entertained, whether that entertainment involves nake people or not it's still kind of degrading when you do the math.

[PatrickHenry]

This is an outrage! Here I am, cruising the internet with "Porn" entered in my search engine, and with trembling fingers I click on what looks like some hot new stuff. What do I find? Nothing but your wretched post. Begone! I want good entertainment!

[garbanzo]

As if there could be a better expert on Bundy's thought process than Bundy, himself.

But you're assuming Bundy was being honest - which given his life story is highly doubtful or at the very least calls his credibility into question.

[garbanzo]

There are two groups of people who are agitated over porn - feminazis and religious conservatives. I'm assuming you're not a feminazi, so let's just be honest about that please. What is interesting is that the religious conservatives now have to rely on bogus psychology to make their case against porn. There isn't any clinical evidence for any of the horrid effects of porn that the religious conservatives usually claim.

Now there is such a thing as sex addiction, but there's no evidence that porn causes sex addiction and significant evidence that a bad relationship to sexuality (e.g. being raised in a very strict religious environment) has a role in developing sex addictions.

[Take No Prisoners]

Please explain why you suddenly give a criminal's "confession" credibility merely because it supports your agenda. Since when has it been the purvue of our govt to protect us from ourselves. Seems to me that sounds more like something the Taliban would espouse.

[CubicleGuy]

But you're assuming Bundy was being honest - which given his life story is highly doubtful or at the very least calls his credibility into question.

Seeing as I didn't know the guy personally, I can only go by what I've read about him, and it didn't seem to me that he had anything to gain in his "I blame the porn, at least partially" confessions/interviews. He was simply telling us what his experience was with the stuff.

Defenders of porn don't want to grant Bundy even a shadow of a benefit of a doubt. Is porn addictive? Ask a regular user, and they'll tell you that they could give it up, any old time they wanted. But, for some strange reason, they can't imagine why they would want to do that with what they claim is a harmless pasttime.

Should I call their veracity or credibility into question the same way they do with Bundy?

[discostu]

OK, because I'm such a nice guy, and you asked so politely (BTW, you probably should apologize to Bella, even though I believe you that you had no intent to slander, it is gentlemanly to apologize for poor sentence structure that implies slander; if it had been my post I would apologize, but that's me), I'll beat on the rest of that post (which I did read).

Flame suit? Check.

Well at least you know what's going to happen. Starting off strong.

It is an unchallengeable tenet that watching porn is good for one, or even a nation?

I don't see anything like that in the original post. This is just info showing that porn is recession proof, something we really didn't need to be reminded since the most recent boom in porno synched up with the major recession of the '70s. Now, in times of economic strife, one can say that anything that's good for the economy is good for the nation, but that's not in this article and would be a very different discussion.

What if it isn't? What if it energizes temptations to adultery, child molestation, multiple sexual partners, even rape? What if, in this way, it is a key weapon against the family, monogomy, and happy marriage, and, as a result, the nation?

Well since nobody said it was, the possibility that it might not be has no bearing. As for the rest of this paragraph that's just erecting (it's really hard to stay away from "smut talk" on porno threads) the usual vastly unproven strawmen the religious right always burns when the topic is nekkid people.

Can a person's head be filled with graphic images of sexual activity, at the same time he is in a state of hyper stimulation, without lasting effect on the way he views women, sex, and the priority of pleasure?

More of the RR's strawmen. If you insist on an answer I'd have to say that it depends on the person. For me I've noticed that a prolonged "porn binge" actually results in a serious reduction of libidinous tendencies, after a while I start viewing it much less lasciviously and much more artistically; ie I stop viewing it as nekkid women and start critiquing the technique and structure of the film/ photo, like how people view "normal" art.

Can we say that porn builds character?'

Guess you're still hung up on whether it's good for you. Does any entertainment build character? Oh sure, there are somethings we do to entertain ourselves that probably do (especially those that revolve around family outings), but most pure entertainment in this country is just that: entertainment. It does not exist to build anything. It's there for those that wish to be entertained to kill time.

Porn is a self-serving addiction, plain and simple. The enemies of a nation know that, by flooding it with porn -- like heroin -- they are using a weapon that is very effective in rotting a people from the core.

Of course the first sentence would be just as true if the subject were sit-coms or sci-fi or any other part of the entertainment industry. As for the enemies of our nation, most of the porn we consume is made in San Fernando, while that is admittedly in leftist Kalifornia I think you're giving them way too much credit to say they are trying to rot our core. For the most part I think they want to make money without having to work for a living. Kind of a sweaty low budget version of the American dream.

Sure, it's fun for a moment or two. But the cost it extracts reverberates over time and the lives of others.

And here is where we finally burn the strawmen. You of course have provided no proof that porn is any more insidious that Seinfeld (I pick on Seinfeld because I hated that show, one of the least funny half hours of TV ever produced, yet much more popular than porn), but because it "lacks redeeming qualities" it's evil and bad and must go away. To which my answer is simple. I won't make you watch porn if you don't make me watch Seinfeld, we can just go about our lives convinced the other is a shmuck with no taste. Is that so frightening to you?

[general_re]

Excellent questions, all of them, and deserving of serious answers. I'll take a stab at a few of them.

It is an unchallengeable tenet that watching porn is good for one, or even a nation?

I'll assume you meant this as a question ("Is it.." rather than "It is...) and answer it thus. It is, of course, not an unchallengeable tenet. In one sense, it is perfectly fair of you to challenge that presumption. And really, to also be fair, the burden of proof of harm should rest with those who would ban or restrict or regulate it, as it should with all things that someone wants to ban or restrict or regulate.

But in a more fundamental sense, challenging that tenet is not really the issue. Society already permits to individuals many, many things that are not good for individuals over the long run (especially in excess) or possibly for the nation as a whole - cigarettes, Big Macs, candy bars, alcohol. It seems to me that to be consistent, we ought to judge whether the negative effects of a thing outweigh the positive aspects. And where the evidence is unclear, it seems best to me to err on the side of individual freedom.

Can a person's head be filled with graphic images of sexual activity, at the same time he is in a state of hyper stimulation, without lasting effect on the way he views women, sex, and the priority of pleasure?

Apparently, yes. To wit:

Voluntary exposure to pornography and men's attitudes toward feminism and rape
The Journal of Sex Research; New York; 1997; Kimberly A Davies;
Volume: 34
Issue: 2
Start Page: 131-137
ISSN: 00224499

Abstract:
A study was conducted to determine whether men who rented more X-rated videos displayed more negative attitudes toward feminism and if they were more likely to condone violence toward women than were men who rented fewer X-rated videos.

Full Text: Copyright Society for the Scientific Study of Sex 1997
[Headnote]
The effects that pornography have on men's attitudes toward women remains an issue of contention. Most previous researchers who have examined the relationship between pornography and attitudes toward women have used experimental studies or aggregate studies. Instead, I examined a sample of men who voluntarily viewed sexually explicit videos of their choosing in a non-experimental setting. I examined the relationship between these men's renting of pornographic videos and their attitudes toward feminism and rape. More specifically, the purpose of this research was to determine whether men who rented more X-rated videos displayed more negative attitudes toward feminism and if they were more likely to condone violence toward women than were men who rented fewer X-rated videos. In this article, I used cross tabulation to compare 194 men who rented X-rated videos of their choosing from a single pornography establishment in a large metropolitan county during 1988. The men were compared on their attitudes concerning the Equal Rights Amendment, a law against marital rape, and punishment for date rape and marital rape. No correlations were found between the number of videos a man had rented and his attitudes toward feminism and rape. These findings suggest that calloused attitudes toward women may not be generated by sexually explicit videos but are more deeply ingrained in our society.

Can we say that porn builds character?

I don't know. But again, even if it doesn't, neither do many other things made freely available to consenting adults. If not building character is the guideline we will use for determining what is and is not present in society, I suspect that we will find ourselves banning a great many things that we currently take for granted.

[realpatriot71]

Kind of a sweaty low budget version of the American dream

I just got back from one helluhva, bitchuhva, test, and I need that laugh. Thanks.

[general_re]

Of course. It's not meant to be. This isn't mathematics - one cannot formulate a deductive proof of whether or not pornography is or is not harmful. But on the other hand, if the bulk of evidence tends to indicate that most people are unaffected by the viewing of pornography, we should not dismiss it merely because the world fails to conform to our notions of how things should be.

FWIW, there are studies indicating that there may be a correlation between sexual violence and the viewing of violent pornography. Truly, these are not conclusive either - correlation, as is said many times, is not causation, and it is unclear if violent pornography causes otherwise ordinary people to act out in violent ways, or if otherwise violent people are also attracted to violent pornography. But I would think that you might tend to find some confirmation of your beliefs in such studies. In which case, surely you must also accept findings on the non-harmfulness of other sorts of pornography.

[longshadow]

What do I find? Nothing but your wretched post. Begone! I want good entertainment!

Whoa, big fella!

Well if you were searching for smut, and found my reply instead, it should be just as good; after all, as the lyrics point out, "We've got trouble, and that starts with a 't' and that rhymes with 'p' and that stands for 'pool'." Not only that, but "pool is the devil's tool." so surely pool must be as naughty as porn.

Seriously, it looks like almost no one on this thread got the point of posting the lyrics to "You Got Trouble", so I guess I better spell it out.

A hundred years ago, the rubes in rural Iowa, eager to believe in the evils of pool halls, dime novels, cigarettes, and rag-time music, were easy pickings for con-artists willing to play upon the their fears. That's what makes the song so funny; the premise from which the locals "reason" (that "pool halls" and the like will destroy the youth of their town) is downright silly.

A hundred years latter, "pool-hall hysteria" of the musical is replaced by "porn hysteria," werein an inanimate object is, once again, conflabulated to be the root of evil.

And like the rubes of River City a century ago, the anti-porn hysterics of today are suckers for the con-artists who promise to protect them from the evils they are so scared of. The difference is that in the musical, the con-artist was only after their money. Today's con-artist comes dressed not as a band leader, but as a politician, and he wants something far more dear than your money; he wants you to willingly give up your rights, all in the interest of his "protecting you" from the evils of "porn" (or is it pool halls?)

[dead]

Q: Incidentally, what is reported to be the most common way that pedophiles lure child victims to have sex with them?
A: Pornography.... but, hey, who does that harm?

Actually, everytime I read about a pedophile luring children away, they use a puppy.

Where did you get that bizarro research? From Ted Bundy?

[tpaine]

Yep, the old prof was far ahead of his time. Why, I bet a modern rendition could link porno, drugs, & fanaticism to the collapse of western civilisation.

[longshadow]

Why, I bet a modern rendition could link porno, drugs, & fanaticism to the collapse of western civilisation.

(Pool + dime novels + cigarettes) in 1900 = (porn + drugs + sexual liberation) in 2000.

Yesiree, .... "the game with the 15 numbered balls is the devil's tool."

[max61]

It's cheaper to watch illicit sex than

What is illicit about sex between 2 consenting adults?.

---max