The Porn Industry By: Carlie Coates

     Recently, I watched a documentary directed by Bryce Wagoner called After Porn Ends.  The ninety-four minute film tells the lives of sixteen famous porn stars after they retired from the industry.  The movie was released in May of 2012 and stated that the growing business had reached to be a six billion dollar corporation[1].  More than likely, this financial number has only gotten larger since then.  However, the real interest I had in the documentary was hearing and learning about the personal experiences of the ex-porn stars after they had left the camera.

     In my opinion, out of the sixteen stars that were interviewed, none of them had left the industry completely sane.  Many of them had relatively normal lives, but they could not totally escape their past.  For instance, Asia Carrera had to change her name after she relocated her life to live in an isolated desert[2].  This example shows that regardless of how a porn star changes their life after leaving, they are either hiding from the public or they are ashamed of their previous profession.  From the documentary, almost all of the stars do not regret their actions, they are just happy they have positively changed their life after being in such a hard business[3]. 

     Out of the sixteen stars, only one was facing a serious health problem; Houston was diagnosed and fighting breast cancer[4].  This thought caught me off guard.  I was picturing the porn industry to have multiple sexual transmitted diseases within its stars, but none of the interviewees mentioned the cleanliness or their overall health while being employed in the business.  Some of the stars started off as strippers or prostitutes, and that is when I realized why I had such negative thoughts on the sanitation with the porn industry.  When studying American history, especially in the Victorian era, there were multiple cases of venereal disease throughout the prostitutes of Nashville[5].  Throughout the history of pornography, STD rates have been low due to the high industry standards.  It took me watching a documentary to realize that the porn industry itself it mostly clean, but the stars are mentally abused after retiring.

 

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[1]Wagoner, Bryce. "After Porn Ends" Recorded May 21 2012 May 21 2012. DVD, www.netflix.com.

[2]Wagoner, Bryce. "After Porn Ends" Recorded May 21 2012 May 21 2012. DVD, www.netflix.com.

[3]Imbd.

[4]Imbd.

[5]Moore, Crystal. “Sex in the Civil War” Movie from University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC, March 18, 2014.