Is gay porn degrading?

I never understood how straight porn could be degrading for women and I surely don't understand how gay porn could be degrading for men.

Porn is a job. Surely not the most glamorous or respectable job but it is a job nonetheless. [I hope] Both parties agree to do it and they are paid for it. So what's the fuss about?

Erm... the fact that much "consensual" porn is produced by women who sign the model release because of drug addiction, are mentally ill, feel the need to re-enact their childhood sex abuse for others to see as they never got the right support, or are in some other way too damaged to get a normal job? And that once you get into the industry most girls are forced to quickly move to hard-core material to stay in it?

Not all of them. I've seen documentaries about this. Some women get into the business because they want the money. And those were the cases I was talking about.

I thought the whole "girls are getting forced into this" was all gone

No more so than Straight Porn?

And to be honest I don't really see that as 'degrading'.

Surely in privacy it is not porn?


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People underestimate how much the amature, self filmed and webcam stuff is destroying the mainstream industry, most of which is from couples and people that want to do it, no company, no cash and no filmcrew involved.

I know not everyone in porn is forced/coerced into it... there are plenty who are though, the same as for prostitution or any other part of the sex industry. There is a continuum between full and free consent and absolute non-consent as in genuine rape videos, even though the law must draw the line somewhere it can still be immoral to use some people.

The legal/overground porn industry is pretty good at keeping out girls who have been literally forced, or are underage (2257 etc.) but knowingly acquiesces in working with many whose consent is at best ambiguous. Jesse Jane, Tera Patrick, the ones in top end (cover stars for big studios: Vivid, Wicked, Girlfriends Films, Evil Empire) should be safe; mid-level girls who play supporting roles or go on box-cover for the lower grade studios will face pressure to do anal, DP, etc. even if they specified they did not wish to do so just to stay in work in Porno Valley while the European scene is not so bad for that; girls in less prominent roles or doing "extreme" things are likely to be less functional and less able to freely refuse.

Jim Powers admits that "most of the people who come into this business are broken toys... they couldn't even hold down a job at McDonald's but I pay them rent, I'm helping these girls." He specialises in machine penetration, gagging, the American Bukkake and American Gokkun series and other gonzo/ultra hardcore. Don't these girls deserve help with their problems, instead of a paycheck to last the month in exchange for swallowing a container of thick semen fried on a stove or taking a fist up their bum? Is what he says not evidence of something deeply wrong with the sex industry in general: it offers an easy but exploitative solution to the problems of (mainly) troubled young women?

Some girls from the very darkest core of the underground, even below the rings and tiny angels, end up in the mainstream industry. You'd never know which ones, but for them it's a continuation of being used by anyone and everyone.

Banning porn would not necessarily help though. When hard porn was illegal in the UK (until late 1990s) this plus serious organised crime, monstrous levels of police corruption and other circumstances not so easily spelt out here led to a market in London and other cities where the under/over ground dichotomy was tenuous at best and the same people were involved from normal hardcore to close to the core of darkness.