Pornland (9 page)

By day Jameson posed for nudie magazine covers, and at 19 she quit stripping to act in adult films—mainly to retaliate against her beau, who had been cheating on her, as she tells it. She shot her first scene in 1993 and a year later landed a contract with Wicked Pictures, which paid her $6,000 a month to perform in eight to ten feature films a year, doing three or four scenes in each. Even better money came in from a return to the brass pole: “After I became famous, I made sick money stripping,” she says with a laugh. At her peak she got $5,000 a show, typically did four shows a night and made extra cash posing for Polaroids with panting patrons ($40 per), selling her latest movie ($50) and gouging gawkers for tips. She claims she often made $50,000 a week.
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Nowhere does this article, or most of the other ones, point out the physical and emotional cost that the industry extracts. For example, in a particularly vacuous interview with Jameson, Anderson Cooper (he calls her “the reigning queen” of porn) says, “You know, as you say, I think, in the book, [pornography] can be very demeaning to women.” Jameson responds with, “Well, it can be. I think that nowadays, the American public, they’re much more accepting of the adult industry, and it goes to show that we should give the American public much more credit than we do.” Jameson clearly avoids answering the question and Cooper, rather than pursuing what is a crucial issue, moves on to another topic.
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Were these interviewers to delve more deeply, they would find that Jameson’s relationship to the porn industry is complex and vacillating—she insists that she loved her work and yet at times her anger at men and at the industry shows through. This was most clearly demonstrated at the Adult Video News Awards in 2008, when she stated in an angry voice, “I will never, ever ever spread my legs for this industry again. Ever.” What was surprising was that the golden girl of the porn industry was booed by her colleagues, possibly because she hinted that she, the woman who made more money from performing in porn than any other woman in the world, was negatively affected by the industry. In some interviews Jameson tells the truth of her life, and in so doing, shows just how much the industry uses up women. One particularly instructive interview Jameson did was with publisher Judith Regan. Asked what her experiences have taught her about men, Jameson replies, “You start to hate men a little bit cuz you see them in a really awful light. They’re drunk, they’re, you know, rude, they’re out of control. You put some alcohol in them and it gets ugly.” She continues by saying that her work as a stripper “showed me what they [men] are capable of.” When Regan asks, “Which is?” she replies, “Total degradation.” What follows is a startling admission by Jameson. When she is asked by Regan if she felt degraded she replies, “Yes, when you are young you are not able to rationalize exactly what is going on. I had a few troubles with it but then, you know, you grow up quickly and I understood what it took to do what I did.” But rather than taking this any further, Jameson quickly turns the interview on its head by saying that “I wasn’t being objectified, I was being empowered.”
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It is difficult to fathom how being degraded is empowering, but it is important to remember that Jameson is on the job when she is being interviewed and thus she can only go so far with her criticisms.

The usual mantra from the porn industry is that women are empowered by doing porn, and this is one way to claim one’s sexuality. Digging a little deeper into Jameson’s life actually illustrates just how disempowered she has felt while making porn. In her book she describes her first photo shoot: “Spreading my legs was the worst. I had no idea it would be so intimidating to sit spread-eagled under bright lights in a room full of clothed people. The photographer keeps shouting ‘wider!’ Now ‘show me pink!’ . . . Though I really wanted to please him, I couldn’t . . . exposing my insides to strangers was so daunting that, instead of spreading my lips with my fingers, I kept trying to cover them up.”
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This does not sound like a woman who ended up in porn because she loves her body and is a “very sexual being,” but rather a scared and embarrassed teenager who was in way above her head. Her account of stripping in her book also illustrates the physical harms these women endure. These include whacking their head on the pole, catching a nipple piercing in their hair or somewhere else, ruptured breast implants from landing/rolling/hitting the pole wrong, bunions, corns, bone spurs, constant sprained ankles, swelled knees, shin splints, lower back pain, degenerative muscle tissue on the pads of feet, neck problems (bulged or degenerative discs) from whipping the head around, joint problems from constant bending and unnatural positions, rotator cuff injuries, a swollen sacrum, hearing problems from loud music, and “bruises on the ass from guys pinching it.”
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But probably the most damning statement on the sex industry is her description of how women are treated in porn: “Most girls get their first experience in gonzo films—in which they’re taken to a crappy studio apartment in Mission Hills and penetrated in every hole possible by some abusive asshole who thinks her name is Bitch. And these girls . . . go home afterward and pledge never to do it again because it was such a terrible experience. But, unfortunately, they can’t take that experience back, so they live the rest of their days in fear that their relatives, their co-workers, or their children will find out, which they inevitably do.”
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This is a very different Jenna Jameson to the one showcased on E! Entertainment or interviewed by Howard Stern. On a show in 2008 Jameson was asked by Stern if her boyfriend likes to “bukkake” (ejaculate) on her face. Playing along, Jameson laughs and says that her boyfriend likes it so much that she’s requested bejeweled goggles for Valentine’s Day. This is the more common public face of Jameson, not surprisingly, as she still makes money from her movies, toys, and gadgets and were she to be angry or truthful most of the time, her fan base might well decline.

But for all of her popularity, there are many porn users who actively dislike Jameson because they think she is too sanitized and that the sex she was willing to do is considered “vanilla” by the porn fans that post on the Adult DVD Talk discussion board. Chief among their complaints is her unwillingness to do anal scenes. Gonzo 420 puts it best when he says, “newsflash to all you Jenna Jameson fans . . . she sucks and is overrated!! Thank god she retired from the business. Now people can focus on whores that actually like sex and like being a whore. When did Jenna Jameson ever do anal? Oh thats [
sic
] right she didn’t, because she’s not a good whore at all.”
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An example of how these users are obsessed by anal sex is the thread that discusses a scene in one of her movies that looks like she was anally penetrated. Sam W starts the discussion with the following observation: “I know other than dildos Jenna didn’t do any anal scenes. However, I got in a Jenna mood the other day and put in ‘Jenna Ink,’ and watched the last scene (the Army scene). I noticed that when she is taking it from behind while kind of just bending over, the guy was going in and completely out of her. Anyway, one time he went to go back in her he actually ‘misses’ and goes into her ass. Jenna pushes him off and says something I think and has a smile on her face. I slowed it down and he definitely goes into her ass.”
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There follows a spirited discussion of the scene, with most fans agreeing that for a short time she was indeed anally penetrated. That this is important to users speaks volumes about the role of anal sex in porn since the act is often used to thoroughly subordinate the woman, and that Jameson has reached mega status without being used in this way irks many users. The way many of the users feel about Jameson is summed up by Bornyo when he writes: “I think it’s become pretty clear that she had no real impotance [
sic
]. I’m sure
Playboy
will tell you she is worthless. Porn is a revolving door or a conveyor belt if you will. Her flavor of the month has long expired and it was only thru shrewd marketing that she was able to keep herself afloat as long as she did. Her performances are lacking when compared to her peers and there are fresher and better girls coming along every day.”
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Eye Balls a Bleeding agrees, as he comments that Jameson’s porn star status is a “lot of hype over nothing. There is nothing really to distinguish her from any other porn chick.” He goes on to say, however, that she does deserve praise for the fact that “she is idolized by hundreds and hundreds of lazy young girls who rush into porn thinking that they are going to be the next Jenna Jameson and make millions. Thus ensuring a never ending supply of 18 year olds hopping on a bus and heading to Chatsworth.”
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If we look beyond the inherent misogyny in Eye Balls a Bleeding’s post (all women, or rather, “porn chicks,” are interchangeable), it is interesting to see that he has identified one of Jameson’s biggest contributions to pornography—her ability to act as a recruitment tool. Before Jameson there was no woman in porn who had a lifestyle that was in any way desirable. The sleaze factor, together with the low pay and abusive work conditions, did not seem very enviable, but today, as the culture becomes more pornographized, and as well-paid jobs become a thing of the past for many working-class women, Jameson’s life does indeed look inviting. Because the mainstream media largely ignore what actually happens to women in porn, the acts they need to perform, their short shelf life, and the ongoing risk of STDs, and instead use Jameson as a porn mascot, then more and more women facing a life of minimum-wage labor are likely to be attracted to the sex industry.
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Jameson has also opened the door for other porn performers to enter the mainstream. The one who seems the most likely to succeed is Sasha Grey, a woman whom one porn producer at the Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas described as “willing to do any sex necessary to be a star.” In 2008 she was offered the lead part in a Steven Soderbergh movie, and that same year
XBIZ News
reported that “Sasha Grey continues her move into the mainstream with a racy appearance in an ad for the American Apparel clothing line.”
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Sasha Grey is now poised to become as big if not bigger than Jameson, and her rise to fame will no doubt help pave the way for more women to become celebrity porn stars.

Vivid Entertainment

This is a business, and we treat it like a business.

—Steve Hirsch, founder of Vivid Entertainment

No discussion of porn going mainstream would be complete without mentioning Vivid Entertainment, the biggest and most successful porn studio in the world. Launched in 1984 by Steve Hirsch, the studio produces high-end Hollywood-film-like features as opposed to cheaply made gonzo movies. With an estimated revenue of $100 million, Vivid dominates the feature market and has virtually become a household name. With its high-tech, upmarket movies, this studio has become the acceptable face of porn, especially when compared to the more body-punishing, cheaply made gonzo.

The company’s promotional copy describes Steve Hirsch as a “creative visionary who saw the potential for a company to grow beyond the confines of the adult entertainment industry.”
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Vivid releases over sixty videos a year, the movies distributed through a range of platforms such as DVD, pay-per-view, video-on-demand cable and satellite television, and the Internet. In addition to porn movies, Vivid also promotes such products as snowboards, calendars, and condoms.

Famous for its conventionally attractive stars, Vivid uses the old Hollywood-type contract system, in which the performers sign on to do a number of movies. These women have become known as the “Vivid Girls” and are often featured on Howard Stern and in men’s magazines such as
Maxim.
When Hirsch explains why he uses the contract system, it is apparent how he treats these women as commodities: “If I was going to put a girl into a movie and I am going to spend a bunch of money promoting and marketing this movie then the next time a guy wants to see a movie with her I want him to come back to me. I don’t want to be spending my money to promote and market a girl that’s in another guy’s movie next week or next month or next year.”
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There are usually ten to twelve women signed with Vivid at a time, and the majority is white because the goal is to promote these women as the public face of porn as well as to have them serve as ambassadors for Vivid in the mainstream media. While the company may have a few “ethnically ambiguous” women, it mostly doesn’t hire African American women, who are still on the lowest level of the porn industry.

Hirsch has stated in interviews that he wanted to make porn mainstream, and given his appearances in the mainstream media (E! Entertainment, Fox, MSNBC), he has become somewhat successful. I appeared on
Rita Cosby: Live and Direct
with him on December 14, 2005, and the show was a perfect example of how the corporate media mainstream porn. Cosby began the show by saying:

Tonight, we’re going to take you into the epicenter of the multi-billion-dollar porn industry that is booming in the digital age in ways that you may not even know. We’ll show you why the person next to you looking at their cell phone or iPod may really be watching porn.

We want to emphasize tonight that, like any industry, there are good and bad elements. We’re not passing judgment on the merits of porn tonight . . . that’s a whole other topic—but instead, we’re reporting to you on just how pervasive it is becoming in our modern-day society.