I have a new monthly column coming up over at Pop My Cherry Review and it’s going to be all about porn. Specifically, I will be interviewing pornography writers, directors, producers, and actors to get their views on ethical pornography. The goal is to learn how to create pornography that is ethical so that I can one day actually make it myself. As well as starting a more involved discussion on where the adult industry is heading and how we can try to control how it treats it’s actors and representatives as well as what kind of image it projects. I’m super excited about it! The first interview will be with Bren Ryder of Good Dyke Porn. I sent her questions a few days ago and according to twitter she “has amazing ideas in her head.” So look forward to that.
I want to try to interview a wide array of people so I won’t be just interviewing queer porn peeps. I will be looking at hetero independent, educational, alt, feminist, etc. The idea though is to find people who I think are ethical pornographers. If you know someone who makes porn or just someone you’d like to see interviewed who you think fits the bill please leave a comment or email to let me know. I would love to get your input!
And to give you a taste of ethical pornography, I leave you with a year old blog post from the creator of EroticBPM, which is a site that I’ve been involved with for years and has helped to shape my views on pornography and ethical pornography.
When I started this raverporn (eroticbpm), I did not sit down and think about ethics. It was just a creative project started from a silly idea. There was no plan with rules and a code of conduct, but as a person with strong personal ethics and ideals, what would become my full time job and business would be a direct reflection of my ethics.
Aside from their appearance, how I represented the models would arguably become one of the biggest marketing gimmicks for the alt porn industry. However, at the time it was more out of necessity than any big ethical choice.
I found rave & club girls attractive, I figured other people found them attractive, and in building a porn site around a community based on that scene. It only made sense to let the girls express themselves and let them be who they were in the photos. Girls who had any modeling experience found it refreshing to not need to take out their piercings, cover their tattoos and wear stupid outfits.
Along with this came models ability to choose how much or how little they wanted to show.
The little known ethical choice I soon made in connection with this was paying models the same no matter how much or how little they decided to display. The girl who doesn’t spread her legs gets the same amount as the girl who has anal sex with her boyfriend. This ensured that models were never being coerced into doing something they were not comfortable with, simply because they needed or wanted the money.
:)
I am really glad that you are going to be spending some time on this.
Ethics in porn is not really something many people give much thought to. Particularly the consumer, and especially because many people by default view the industry as unethical. But it is a very important issue for performers and more needs to be done to educate people on how to produce ethical porn and to support it.
Hooray! I greatly look forward to your column!
I second Killshot’s comments on the importance of bringing this issue to public attention.
Wheee! Can’t wait for the first interview… Bren Ryder (RAWR!)… I’d love to see you interview Danny Wylde too. He is a budding filmaker himself, does both straight and gay, and somehow manages to come across as authentic (because I think he is) in all of his films. Plus, he’s a cool dude too. :) Glad to have you aboard and really looking foward to the column!
He does gay porn!?! OMG give me titles! Must watch!