Today’s entry comes entirely from the fact that i was dragged kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century and recently signed up for a Netflix account. To illustrate what a big deal this is, the last Blockbuster within twenty miles of my home closed over five years ago. Since then, my film dossier has been limited to the very few movies I’m willing to spend theater prices to watch, the even fewer movies I’m willing to buy as DVDs, and whatever I happen to catch during the couple of times a year that U-Verse does it’s Free Everything Weekend.
So, for five years, Bunnyhat and I have been discussing whether or not to sign up for Netflix (technically, more, since we started discussing it when her brother got an account back when they were just mailing DVDs to people). We’re still discussing it, since we’re currently doing the free month and still have time to cancel before we have to start paying. Anyway, it took me five years to get around to doing something that most people had already done before the Blockbuster closed (which is probably why it closed in the first place). That doesn’t matter, because all of this is prologue.
Last week, trying to get full advantage from the streaming version (we’re also discussing the pros and cons of updating to the mail-a-disc version) of Netflix, i tripped over an interesting title: “After Porn Ends”. Turns out, it’s a documenatry about a few porn stars, including how they got into adult features, and what their life has been like since they left the industry.
On its surface, it appears to be a damning screed against the erotic entertainment industry as a whole, and adult films in particular, especially if you listen to one of the featured experts, the author of a book on the industry. One male star is living alone and pushing seventy, two female stars were pushed so close to the edge that only Christian Evangelism saved them from suicide and self-destruction, a single mother nearly lost her home, and another woman was fired from her job as real estate contact for a major national developer because she was recognized by a client.
But the producers and director of the film are too honest, both with themsleves and their subjects to let it stand as such. The male star living alone openly admits that his shyness caused him to lose his chance with the woman he thought he could spend his life with, the single mother nearly lost her home because her husband died in an accident, and it was her fans–fans of her porn career–who came through in the clutch and helped her save her home (and Chritmas for her kids). The author who speaks so eloquently and damningly of the industry is an orthodox Jewish convert (this is never stated, but his untrimmed beard and the flashes of his Yarmulke provide clues for those who would think to research further). That’s not a slam against Jews or even Orthodox Jews, simply a bit of info, because converts, especially religious converts are notorious for embracing even the most insane (and generally ignored, by those born to the philosophy) arguments and tenets of their new belief.
The filmmakers also show their honesty in not downplaying the non-negative effects that their subjects express. Of the three male stars showcased, two were in happy, longterm marriages. Four of the seven women showcased were neither unhappy with how their previous careers affected their lives nor with their lives since. Even the woman who’d been fired for having once been a porn star took her firing (and an unfortunate cancer diagnosis) as an opportunity to become a nurse. The two women who were convinced that porn had ruined their lives were plagued by darker demons than can be attributed to some on-camera fucking.
More, the filmmakers are honest enough to attribute most of the problems faced by their subjects right smack where the attribution belongs: on the society that supports a porn industry in the first place.
People come up to me and say, “Well, you should be in politics.” And I go, “There are pictures of me with a dick in my ass…it isn’t going to happen.”
—-Nina Hartley
I am not saying that porn should be illegal. Porn serves a valid purpose in society. I am saying that porn stars are just people who do a job. Porn, itself is not the problem. People become self-destructive in every avenue of the arts, if they’re successful and screwed up enough that their success willmagnify their deeper demons. River Phoenix, Kurt Cobain, Charlie Sheen, and Lindsey Lohan aren’t porn stars. They’re deeply damaged people who found themselves in a world that provided them with the means and a celebration of their excesses (and them condemned them for their weakness when their excesses overtook them).
Porn does not intrinsicly deride or defame women. As the father of a daugher, I find Carrie Bradshaw’s obsession with shoes and bagging a man more offensive than some goofy plot about three people who enjoy fucking under contrived circumstances. I find Law and Order: SVU’s message of “Whoever you are, whatever you do, someone wants to kill you with his dick,” much more frightening then the idea that people might enjoy themselves for an afternoon because orgasms are awesome.
I honestly can’t say why we, as a society demonize so many things that aren’t really our business. It seems, no matter what you do, there is some psycho who thinks you’re horrible because it makes you happy (or, in the case of recreational drugs, less sad). I can only say that we need to stop it. Because it’s stupid.