Source: Adult Industry News
By: Rich Moreland
Prop 60, Part Two: Roaring Chorus, By Rich Moreland
Was Prop 60 a game changer for the industry?
Performer Cindy Starfall thinks so. “The industry definitely united. We did the whole campaign, we came together.”
She affirms that adult performers are “Not a health risk” to society and agrees with other industry people that Prop 60 was pointless.
Casey Calvert thinks it’s defeat was pivotal.
“One hundred percent,” she declares, “Huge, massive industrywide, business wide, game changer. It’s something everybody’s still talking about months later.”
She comments that porn people respect each other’s views, “But we don’t actually have anybody’s back.” Now that may have changed.
Ela Darling agrees.
“There is strength in unity, there is strength in community, especially when you are a marginalized community. Whether we are sex workers, or women, or people of color, or queer people, nobody is going to have our backs if don’t we have our backs.
“It’s very easy to dismiss a few voices, but it’s much harder to dismiss a roaring chorus of people aligning together. We are just not just weird sex people. We are the laborers. We are taxpayers. When we all stand together, that becomes apparent.”
John Stagliano is cautiously optimistic about the future, perhaps because of his past battles with government overreach into porn. He sees a cultural shift in attitude that has benefitted the industry.
“I think the game changer was the fact that the people have changed and the internet has changed people and we were able to effectively reach them.”
On the other hand, Derrick Pierce is not so sure about a major political shift resulting from Prop 60 because of how porn does business.
“I wouldn’t say a game changer, maybe a shift in tides. I don’t think it hurt APAC, [but] we’ll all be long gone in the business before APAC has a game changer moment.”
Derrick is straight forward. As a support group APAC works, but a union, if that is its intent, requires the commitment of time and money.
“To be one hundred percent honest, there is never going to be a union in porn. It’s great in theory but seventy percent of the business is female,” he says.
Most girls, the eighteen to twenty-one year olds, are just passing through and think, “I’m just going to knock out a couple of scenes, blow a couple of dudes and I’m outta here,” he says.
The other thirty percent, “The jessica drakes and the Asa Akiras and the Phoenix Maries, all those girls who have made a career out of this, yes, they would be the ones who would benefit the most and a lot of the guys that stick around, too.
Derrick’s words bring to mind an argument I’ve heard before from adult legend Nina Hartley… organizing porn talent is like herding cats.
But hey, perhaps times are changing?
At any rate, the industry can revel in its victory today and hope for a profitable tomorrow.
A final word before we close.
Porn veteran Briana Banks brings up a point that may have swayed some voters. She’s happy with the outcome of Prop 60 but there is bit of reality that may have been missed when assessing it’s defeat.
Briana shot for the condom-only Vivid for several years and her movies sold well, she says. But when she put up a recent condom clip she filmed for her website, her fans panned the scene.
“My fans were disgusted. They really were.” The industry has been bareback for so long, “That now if you use a condom, people watching porn can’t get past it,” she adds.
But there is something else at work here, Briana thinks.
“Seeing a condom makes fans think of STDs and HIV that they don’t think of when watching a porn movie.”
They are reminded of the risks they take in their own lives, Briana believes, and that’s why condom shoots don’t sell. “To watch a porn star use a condom makes them think about the reality of life in general.”
Interesting. Maybe it’s something everybody missed in this battle. Porn is just fantasy and Prop 60 was about to take that away.
If so, there could be a darker underlying message hidden within this victory. Does on-screen bareback sex suggest that some fans may unconsciously regard porn performers as entertainers who are in fact expendable?
It’s an intimidating thought that overrides any game changer moment we may celebrate.
