Self-admittedly, the porn industry is at a cross-road. The joke among porn-consumers, when someone inevitably gets busted for buying illegal pornography with a credit-card, is: “Some people actually still pay for porn?” Although, profits are nonetheless high in pornography, the money is more spread around the country, and the globe, and not just in the hands of a few mafia kingpins or San Fernando Valley porn-pushers. This has to do with the rise of the internet and the contemporaneous phenomena of reality entertainment.
In the 1970s, during the so-called Golden Age of Porn, much of the financing came from shady or underground crime syndicates looking to make a quick turn-over. The actors, and sometimes the producers and directors, came from the legitimate world of film and theater, but either got swept up in the excitement of the sexual revolution and the gay liberation movement or thought a turn in porn would be a form of protest and a symbol of freedom. Examples from the era are John Holmes, Annette Haven, Marilyn Chambers, Casey Donovan, and the tragic Linda Lovelance; who grew-up wanting to become a nun, started getting into drugs as a rebellious teen in the age of free-love, met the wrong guy, and ended-up doing bestiality scenes before becoming famous in “Deep-Throat.” In the 1980’s, with the advent of the video-cassette recorder, porn entered its boom-generation. Porn had been profitable, but many consumers were still too embarrassed to enter a movie-house that showed X-rated films, or would never think of going into a dirty-book store. The VCR brought porn into the home. It also caused the advent of the girl-next-door porn star. Demand became high, and porn-recruiters actively sought out non-actors to model and perform in magazines and films. They were the first reality-stars. Most saw it as a stepping-stone to eventual work in main-stream Hollywood. The big names were: Shauna Grant, Amber Lynn, and Traci Lords. At the same point, gonzo, or amateur porn, become popular, as anyone with a fairly inexpensive home video-recorder could make pornography; only there was no real way to distribute the content to a larger audience. With the 1990s, a new breed of porn star was born: one that got into the business, not seeking fame in another realm of show business, but solely as stars of adult films. Most, like me, grew-up around the burgeoning porn empires of Playboy and Penthouse. Our childhood poster-dreams, women like Dorothy Stratten, were no longer considered subversive, but glamorous celebrity figures on the international stage. The porn actresses of the 90s were truly beautiful looking women in their own right: Savannah, Jenna Jameson, and Asia Carrera. Their films made big money, and they got equally sized paychecks for their work. With the internet, everything would change.
I checked out of porn in 1999, just the internet began to truly become a world-wide obsession. At first, someone sitting in front of their home or office computer could only slowly download still images of nude women, men, or other pornographic photographs; usually taken from magazines or actual commercially-released porn videos. When the internet became capable of streaming video: all bets were off. Porn was easily accessible, cheap, and private. No one needed to know. I remember a secretly bi-sexual swinging friend of mine, when I was doing porn, asking for a copy of a movie that I was in. I told him I didn’t have one, but that he could buy it at a particular store in The Castro. He said no-way. Since he was stepping-out on his wife and kids, and was a rather prominent physician, he told me that he would never be caught walking into a gay-porn shop. So, I went and got it for him. With the internet, that problem no longer existed. Everyone was free to explore their every sexual eccentricity or deviance. That which had to be kept somewhat under control, could now flourish. But, most importantly, in terms of the porn industry, by mid-2000s, the home-grown amateur porn star and producer as pornographer came into their own.
Remarkably, less than a year after doing my last porn film, I was secluded and shut-away in a Catholic monastery: hidden in the woods of rural Pennsylvania. After Sunday Masses, to which the public was invited, I overheard someone talking about a new TV show called “Survivor.” I had no idea to what they were referring to; since I had not looked at a television in months. When I had to leave my self-imposed exile, I landed back home in California to stay with my parents. I became immediately depressed and, in a vain effort to prove my self-worth, started cruising the internet for any remnants of my past porn career. I was next to forgotten. And, unbelievably, the biggest porn star I ever came in contact with, Joey Stefano, was almost nowhere to be found. Pornography had been taken over by a much younger crowd that was willing to do things on camera that I never did; or anyone else I knew. I marveled how everyone was online. Porn had expanded to fill every niche market; nothing was too odd, ugly, or bizarre. Marilyn, Shauna, and Jenna of yesteryear were all gone. The new mantra: you too could be a porn star. In the past, everyone came to porn after some sort of trauma. Now, it was just cool. I called a friend in San Francisco. He said he might have a role for me as a “daddy;” beating-up some young newbie. I actually thought about it. Only, after one last re-exposure to the life I had left behind, I turned away from my past for the last time.
Tragically, pornography has become an everyday part of the new reality. We are all reality porn stars: kids text nude pictures of themselves, trade pornographic video-clips, look to soft-core stars of music, film, and television for fashion inspiration; adult males spend hours staring blankly into computer screens, husbands and boyfriends ask their partners to watch porn with them, demand that women act out their porn fantasies; women wonder what they missing, delve into “erotic” literature, then, succumb to the allure of porn. Everyone is plugged in, but at what cost?