I would like to make a somewhat controversial claim that I wish were not so controversial; anyone who would argue against this must, it would seem, not be paying attention, but I know plenty of people who would laugh at it: porn is a difficult and athletic form of very real, very difficult performance.
I mean it! It’s true. I have lots of proof in my repertoire, but before I dive into all of it let me tell you a story that strikes me as particularly pertinent: There is a female porn performer I really like. I won’t give her name here, but she’s beautiful in a fine-featured, sophisticated way, with mousy brown hair she doesn’t dye and a sweet, honest expression that comes across as utterly unpretentious. She seems like a genuine person. She does things just as hardcore as many of her cohorts, but there is something in her demeanor that gives her an air of… I don’t know… poise. And the best thing is that she seems to really enjoy herself in her scenes; she’s a multiple orgasm professional. During some of the scenes I’ve reviewed, I’ve counted over a dozen climaxes, which she signals by flushing pink from the chest upward, opening her eyes wide, and uttering adorable high-pitched moans that make me happy to hear. She’s really coming, and it’s awesome! Good for her!
I give high marks for authentic female orgasms in my reviews, and since this performer has them all the time and is blessed with all the aforementioned attributes, she’s a favorite of mine. I’ll seek out her movies before many others. I’ve never gotten an interview with her, and given her level of stardom it might be a while before I can get her attention, but I have thought of some questions: “Have you always been able to come so easily? Are you able to come just from penetration?” Etc.
But just recently I read an article by one of my favorite sex writers about her time reporting on porn in the San Fernando Valley. She describes a scene in which she was present for the filming of a porn movie, and from her descriptions I could tell she was talking about one of my favorite scenes with the aforementioned favorite performer! This is a standout scene, ladies and gents, and it features the starlet orgasming copiously. I was excited to read about one of the few scenes I can honestly say has stood out to me in my years of reviewing.
But then the writer asked the performer if she’d really come all those times. The answer, sadly, was, “No.”
I was heartbroken when I read this. All the passion I thought had been filmed, all the soulful sex I’d gotten so hot and bothered over… It was all fake! The one real thing I thought I’d been woman enough to notice was just one more fake in the huge heap of porn’s unreality.
It hurt me because I like to think I’m an eagle-eyed reviewer when it comes to female pleasure in porn. I like to see it because I don’t get turned on if I can’t see it, and because it makes me feel better about being a party to all this supposed objectification of women. (If a woman is actively feeling sexual pleasure, then she’s not exactly an inanimate object for men to pile their lust onto, is she?) So I get excited—nay, passionate—about female porn stars actually coming on camera. And finding out my favorite star wasn’t coming shattered my illusions.
But here’s the thing: after much thought, I ended up feeling better about the whole issue. Because I realized for the first time that it’s true: porn is all performance. I’d been working so hard to determine the real from the fake, and I’d still been proven wrong by a truly talented performer. It can’t be easy to remember to make the right face, sound, and movements when you’re being pounded in some bizarre position in a room full of lights, cameras, sound equipment, and people. Doing this well does require skill and serious athleticism. And my favorite star does it really, really well. Realizing that she wasn’t just coming and coming for hours on screen actually gave me more respect for her than I’d had before. She might not be getting off as much as I wish she were, but that’s because she’s so good at what she does that I got swept up in the action and forgot that what was watching wasn’t just two people in a room alone doing what feels good. It’s easy to forget these things because that’s what porn is for. The actors are performing. They’re professionals. They’re doing what they think I want to see, and they are doing it damn well.
Even aside from faked orgasms and performance skill, let’s take a moment to appreciate the sheer athleticism of most porn performers. You may be laughing, but really, think about it. Sure, everything is edited so you don’t see the breaks taken between positions or the struggles of the guy to keep his hard-on, but you can’t tell me that people who have full-on jackhammer sex for forty-five minutes in positions most of us couldn’t even figure out, in front of the aforementioned equipment and people, don’t deserve some respect for their performance abilities. I think they do, and I think anyone who’s ever been on a porn set would agree with me. I mean, I’ve seen women bent over at the waist giving blowjobs in eight-inch stiletto platform heels. For twenty minutes. I can’t do that—I can hardly stand up in shoes like that, much less balance while bent over and focusing on mouth sex. These are people who can perform pile-driver, reverse cowgirl, and even squatting woman on top at length, all while turning their heads at appropriate angles to make sure the camera can see their faces (or not see their faces, if they’re men) and coming up with inventive dirty talk. These are people who get their buttholes bleached and their pubic hair zapped off by lasers, who spend more time manicuring and tanning and working out than most of us spend sitting on our asses snacking during the workday, just so that they’ll look better for us while performing their acrobatics.
They are dedicated to their art. Suppressing the gag reflex? Check. Juggling several sets of genitals at once? Check. Giving upside-down head? Check. Standing with the girl fully supported by the man in mid-coitus? Like it ain’t no thang. Reverse 69s? I don’t even know what that means but, check. Seriously, I once saw a blowjob scene where the girl was doing a backbend through the rungs of a ladder and still managing to deliver a searing suck-off. This isn’t child’s play (thank goodness)—porn performers can do things you’d never dream of trying, at length, on camera, and incredibly well. I’m sure some of you are thinking that these are skills nobody needs to have, but honestly, nobody needs to be able to sweep a lane of ice to a perfect slipperiness for a heavy stone, either. Yet curling is an Olympic sport.
I’ve been thinking about it, and while there are all kinds of logistical problems, I’m going to go ahead and advocate an Olympic-level competition for porn performers. I think it’s a great idea. Nothing brings the world together in good-natured competition like the Olympics or the World Cup, so why not open that friendly feeling up to our friends in the skin biz, who work so hard to get us hard? They need all the positive press they can get, and what better way to impress us prudes than to let them show off their unique and impressive skill sets? There could be stamina competitions for the men, maybe using a sex doll or Fleshlight to avoid overtaxing the women; stretching and contortion routines; upside-down and reverse 69 competitions (judged on time, skill, and special talents); gag reflex suppression feats of slobbery valor; upper thigh strength contests. And the name is already built in: The XXX Games. It would be fantastic!
Or we could do a slightly-fewer-X’s version in which the skills being tested were preformed in less-explicit ways. Perhaps the women could demonstrate deep-throat prowess on zucchinis, while the men could show their strength and stamina by using the ladies as batons/props in elaborate floor routines mimicking sexual positions. Thigh strength could be measured in any number of squatting motions, without a penis in the mix, or perhaps simply hovering over a chair, public bathroom style. Obstacle courses could be set up for the ladies (only six-inch heels and over need apply) to demonstrate agility. Girls with serious “assets” could wear skin-hugging leggings and pick things up with their clenched cheeks. There could be all manner of creative head-stand competition to prove pile-driver prowess… The possibilities are endless, and at least bits of it could be shown on mainstream cable television. The reasoning being that, while there are plenty of awards handed out every year to porn performers from within the industry, the performers are rarely granted anything more than a few giggles and lame puns for their efforts by the rest of us. The only way to raise awareness for the achievements of the porn world is to get it out of what Nina Hartley called “the nipple ghetto.”
Ok, I realize that none of this will probably happen anytime soon. Change comes slow to anything involving sex in this country. At this point, if the XXX Games were to be held, they’d almost definitely end up as a very elaborate and expensive porno film. But I think the least we as the porn-consuming public (and don’t pretend like you don’t consume porn) is to give performers a smidgen of the credit they deserve. Not that an Olympic level Porno Cup is necessarily the way to degrade porn performers less—chances are it could be seen as more mockery than gravitas-laden competition, and certainly it would be a spectacle that the less open-minded might interpret as a freak show display of vulgarity. But porn performers are highly trained athletes in their own right, but it’s a largely thankless job they do because many of us don’t like to talk about it. Bringing their talents out into the light in a highly-publicized, magazine cover-garnering event is just one wild idea out of what could be thousands if the world decided it was willing to take porn people more seriously. Treat them more like people. Because many of us do appreciate what they’re doing for ten or twenty minutes in the dark every day or two, and I think the performers would appreciate knowing it.