A Healthy Interest in Porn

This Post May Not Be Suitable For Under 18s.

Discussing my post on Zack and Miri Make a Porno lead to seeing if Wikipedia had an article on "the money shot" - and it does. Perhaps not surprising, since that is, after all, slang in normal filmmaking as well as porn. More interesting was the link to the cum shot page. Not just because it's always funny to see wiki swearing (seriously, check out Fuck Her Gently), but due to the debate about who, precisely, is objectified during the process - the woman, who is used as a background for the male's pleasure, or the male, who is almost entirely out of shot during the process, and is used merely as a foil to his partner's acting. If it matters, I think, generally speaking, the female partner is slightly more objectified during the process, since she is usually shown to enjoy it - to adore it, in fact - which puts her partner in the dominant role. Again, going back to Zack and Miri, filmmaking, including porn, is generally a male dominated process. Women are seen through male eyes, and the roles are created by male writers and directors - so how much of a woman can she be? Especially when she is shown to enjoy whatever her partner wishes to do?

In answer to this, many female pornographers have arisen. Much erotic literature is written by women, and many more porn directors are female. Including one actress turned director who goes by the name "Candida Royalle".

I wonder if anyone's told her that her name essentially means "really special yeast infection"?

Going back to erotic literature, one of the oldest examples of such is the Autobiography of a Flea, and there's a rather good essay (written by Lisa Segel) concerning the objectification of women in porn which uses it as a starting point here.

In one final point, I do recall reading somewhere that female porn actresses are traditionally paid more than their male equivalents - one of the very few industries in which this is the case, and the only part of filmmaking in which it's true (assuming it is true). It does make sense - to quote my original source "well, they're not paying to look at your tits".