
Deep Inside: A Study of 10,000 Pornstars and Their Careers - justinmares
http://jonmillward.com/blog/studies/deep-inside-a-study-of-10000-porn-stars/
======
pbiggar
Honestly, I'm offended. How could any man spend such time so deep in such
filth? I understand that people gotta do what they gotta do, but really:
_Excel_?

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digitalengineer
Offended? It's about time somebody brought some order in to that chaotic
world. He shows a lot of assumptions are actually just that: assumptions not
backed up by facts. Now we know. And why would someone seeking knowlegde
offend you? Were you forced at gunpoint to click the link? Or do you feel
uncomfortable discussing sex-related topics? Well, most people do and thats
what brings us back to those _assumptions_ other people use to create official
policy.

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alan_cx
The post you replied to is so, so short, yet you couldn't even be bothered to
the end of it, preferring to react to the first few words. Scary.

However, I must thank you because I think you just demonstrated why western
society is such a complete mess better than anything I have previously read or
seen. A hair trigger reaction with out even bothering to consume the point,
let alone understand it. And how could you understand it, you didn't even read
it? The sad thing is that you're not even giving yourself a chance.

And that is leaving aside the sheer blinding irony of you criticising people
for making assumptions.

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digitalengineer
What? A hariy trigger? No, not quite. I did read it, but simply didn't
understand his joke. Doens't happen to me a lot but than again _English is not
my main language, Dutch is_ and it's easy to misread a short joke in another
language.

Like I stated: I read it as if he was upset because OP _excelled at this kind
of research_.

Like the dictionary: ex·cel , ex·celled, ex·cel·ling. verb (used without
object) to surpass others or be superior in some respect or area; do extremely
well: to excel in math.

Do you really think I would have reached over a 1000 karma if I had a hairy
trigger? Oh, well, I do find it funny you're criticising me for making
assumptions.

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fluidcruft
> it's easy to misread a short joke in another language

Perhaps you should approach _reading_ other people's English with the same
caution and lenience you're asking of _your_ readers?

I'll also state the obvious: your excuse lacks grammatical support. You were
wrong, move on and stop making a scene.

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digitalengineer
There's no reasoning with you. I'll leave the history of all my comments here
as well as my twitter updates with the same name speak for me.

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conroe64
I think this conversation already does...

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CodeMage
This is certainly an interesting study, but I can't help being seriously
disappointed by this part:

 _Sometimes when I hear people railing against porn, declaring it as the
downfall of society, a poison infecting masculine minds and demeaning female
ones, I wonder what kind of porn they’re talking about.

[...]

So when I hear somebody claim that porn is ‘degrading’, I can’t help but ask:
which porn?_

If you think most porn isn't degrading, then you need to look a bit closer and
think a little harder. I've already posted my views [1], but I'll copy & paste
the relevant part here:

 _First of all, there's very little porn out there where the woman truly
enjoys the experience. It's not always glaringly obvious (although we'll get
back to that in the next point), but if you actually stop and look, you'll see
the discomfort and/or indifference very often.

Second, a lot of porn out there focuses on and glorifies the woman's
suffering, pain and degradation. Seriously, you only have to read the word
"painal" once to realize that. However, if that's not enough, you might also
look for the occurrences of "choke", "gag", "destroy", "slut", etc.

Third, even the porn that doesn't focus on pain teaches wrong stuff. One might
get the idea that the only thing a man need do to make a woman enjoy sex is to
pound her fast and hard. On top of that comes the whole issue of hygiene: the
way anal is portrayed means that if you try it at home, your female partner
will likely end up with an infection.

Fourth, it creates unrealistic expectations. Let's just say that gag reflex is
not as easy to suppress as the porn makes you believe and that anal sex is not
a matter of just sliding in any time you want.

TL;DR: No, it's not just about whether the sex if fun or boring._

Finally, I find the claim that "female porn stars dictate the type of sex they
have by listing in their modelling profiles the acts they’re willing to
perform on camera" to be disingenuous. It propagates the idea that everything
is okay and whatever isn't okay is "her fault".

[1]: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4499803>

EDIT: Since I'm obviously not trolling, I was wondering whether anyone could
help explain the drive-by downvoting. I don't expect everyone to agree, but it
might be nicer to have a discussion than to suppress it ;)

~~~
jules
> Second, a lot of porn out there focuses on and glorifies the woman's
> suffering, pain and degradation. Seriously, you only have to read the word
> "painal" once to realize that. However, if that's not enough, you might also
> look for the occurrences of "choke", "gag", "destroy", "slut", etc.

I might be mistaken here, but as far as I can tell this kind of porn is the
minority. Also, isn't this 'degrading porn' meant for people who identify with
the person being degraded? Whether you like it or not, the power dynamic is an
integral part of human sexuality. That you see this in porn is just an effect
of the phenomenon, not the cause. It's completely natural and benign. People
saying that this is "wrong" and taboo are doing far more harm than good to the
women and men (!) who enjoy being on that side of the power dynamic.

Secondly, porn isn't meant to be realistic. Complaining about that is just
like the people complaining about violence in video games and movies. People
are perfectly capable of distinguishing reality from fiction. The reason
people enjoy porn is _exactly_ because it is not realistic -- it satisfies a
fantasy, whether that is sex with a person who is far out of your league, or
rough sex, or otherwise. The way to go here is to improve sex education, not
to blame porn for not being sex education.

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jseliger
>I might be mistaken here, but as far as I can tell this kind of porn is the
minority. Also, isn't this 'degrading porn' meant for people who identify with
the person being degraded?

I've dated women (note the plural) who were into this sort of porn. I'm not a
random sample, obviously, but take a look at books like _A Billion Wicked
Thoughts_ and _The Evolutionary Biology of Human Female Sexuality_ , or
Meredith Chivers' work: bdsm-style desires appear to be more common than is
commonly depicted in the media.

~~~
fluidcruft
I'm skeptical of your claim which implies that this type of porn is
predominantly marketed to and consumed by women.

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Retric
I think your misreading the comment. It's a classic case of rule 34 somewhere
someone is into this crap and it you don't need a lot of customers to make
money with porn. I mean being eaten by alive is a fetish vore.
<http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=vore>

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shardling
> one thing’s for sure: most women don’t quit after one film—in fact, the
> majority (at least 53%) do three or more.

Well, I guess that depends on how accurate the database is. To the extent that
it might miss performers, it would certainly be biased towards those who have
fewer credits, or whose credits are for smaller outfits.

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lmkg
Another confounding factor: there's a decent volume of shovelware movies that
consist of non-original scenes edited together, like a mash-up tape. I would
not be surprised to discover that one scene results in three credited
appearances on average.

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pessimizer
They flag compilations on iafd. Let's pretend they mentioned that in the
article somewhere and I didn't just happen to know.

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jiggy2011
I foresee sex work (so, porn , prostitution , "cam whoring") being huge
business over the coming years (ok, it's already huge, but I mean even huger)
and losing a lot of it's stigma.

Here in the UK where prostitution is legal there already exists websites where
people can basically browse online directories for various sexual services.

Combine high employment with women realising that they can make a solid 4
figures a week by working < 8 hours a day with the male tendency to "seek
variety".

It's only a matter of time before some business manages to take advantage of
this on a huge scale.

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mhaymo
As a UK resident, I had no idea prostitution was legal. Wikipedia says: In the
United Kingdom, prostitution itself (the exchange of sexual services for
money) is not a crime,[2] but a number of related activities, including
soliciting in a public place, kerb crawling, owning or managing a brothel,
pimping and pandering, are crimes.

So how exactly does prostitution work? It seems like it is effectively
illegal.

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jiggy2011
AFAIK it is legal as long as the prostitute is effectively self employed (so
not working for a pimp or brothel) and not selling services on the street, and
of course over 18. This is where the internet comes in.

There is a certain website known for this which I will not link to here.

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RobAley
Nope, advertising online (or anywhere else) is illegal (offering sexual
services for money). Pretty much the only time its legal is if two adults who
have otherwise met come to a spontaneous agreement to have sex for money. E.g.
if a friend says to me "I need £500 to pay my rent" and I say "how about I pay
that for you and you have sex with me". Just to be clear, thats never happened
to me. I don't have £500 spare...:)

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jiggy2011
As far as I can tell the advertising is only illegal if it is in what
constitutes a "public place". IANAL but I doubt that a privately owned website
would count as such and if it is illegal it doesn't appear to be enforced at
all.

Women who work as prostitutes will usually pay taxes as self employed people
and can actually claim advertising (as well as various other things that are
best left to the imagination) back as business expenses.

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RobAley
A privately owned website that is generally available to the public most
certainly does constitute a public place (in the same way that standing in a
pub saying "who fancies a shag for £50" wouldn't get you off the hook. If
you're soliciting TO the public, it doesn't matter where you are "standing".

Escorts pay tax and deduct expenses for the "Escorting" work they do, not the
sex. If they declare the income as income for sex, the police quickly come
knocking to arrest you for "living off immoral earnings" (a few have done so
in the past as a "protest").

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jiggy2011
It is only an offence to live off the immoral earnings of others, not your
own.

“Public place” includes any highway and any other premises or place to which
at the material time the public have or are permitted to havea ccess, whether
on payment or otherwise ”.

I wouldn't think a website constitutes a "place" under such a definition.
Otherwise posting a picture of your genitals on a website could be viewed as
indecent exposure, though IANAL.

~~~
makomk
Yeah, one sex worker rights activists described the approach politicians take
to prostitution as "they don't criminalise us, they just criminalise everyone
around us". So if a woman dares to have sex for money whilst living with a
partner or with a teenage kid over about 12-14, their partner or kid can be
arrested for living on immoral earnings. (Some other countries are even worse;
apparently in Sweden landlords risk being arrested if they don't kick out sex
workers renting from them upon discovering their line of work because it's
illegal to make money from them full stop.)

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rb2k_
I would be really interested to see statistics about the differences to the
rest of society. On maps of e.g. the birthplace/hair/color/... I'd be more
interested in the deviation from national averages.

A lot of people are born in big cities, so a lot of pornstars will be born in
big cities. I'd be interested to see which cities have a disproportionally
low/high number.

Even with the hair color, I'm wondering what the deviation from the national
averages looks like.

p.s. obligatory xkcd: <http://xkcd.com/1138/>

~~~
vacri
On the xkcd thing, meh. If your users map is similar to a population map, then
it means you're appealing to a broad slice of the population. If it's centred
in one area, that means you're not appealing outside that area. There's
nothing wrong with such a map if it's interpreted correctly.

~~~
randallsquared
> If your users map is similar to a population map, then it means you're
> appealing to a broad slice of the population.

Er, no, it just means there's no geographic component to your appeal within
the limits of the map. Could be a very narrow slice, but even distributed in
population.

~~~
vacri
I think we mean the same thing, but are describing it differently. Certainly
what you're mentioning is information in itself, not 'no information'.

Of course, this doesn't mean it shouldn't be a pet peeve, just that being a
peeve doesn't mean it's actually wrong or misleading, just that it's annoying
to the... erm... 'peevee'?

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johncoogan
As always, the regional heat map is useless...
[http://jonmillward.com/blog/wp-
content/uploads/2013/02/porn-...](http://jonmillward.com/blog/wp-
content/uploads/2013/02/porn-star-birth-places-large.png)

Luckily there is a relevant xkcd: <http://xkcd.com/1138/>

~~~
InclinedPlane
I'm surprised more people aren't working on alternate heatmap visualizations,
it doesn't seem like an incredibly hard problem to me.

~~~
capnrefsmmat
It is a hard problem. You could, for instance, divide by population to get a
rate instead of an absolute number -- but then rural areas would have all the
hotspots. Why? Because in areas with small samples, you're bound to get more
variation and noise, so all the extremes will occur in areas where there are
few people.

There are ways to adjust for that, but basically, you can't win:

[http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/research/published/allm...](http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/research/published/allmaps.pdf)

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freddealmeida
I would love this level of study of bankers. 10,000 bankers and their careers.
HSBC drug cartel bankers get extra points.

[http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/gangster-
bankers-t...](http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/gangster-bankers-too-
big-to-jail-20130214?link=mostpopular1)

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Taylorious
This guys other articles are really good too. He has a couple on escorts that
are really interesting. The article he has on the last words of inmates being
put to death is absolutely fascinating and incredibly saddening.

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lifeisstillgood
>> If you think that’s bad, you haven’t heard the half of it. Another reviewer
mentioned being able to taste the dry saliva of a previous punter on the
escort’s nipple while he sucked it

O...M...G...

Edit: there is something, levelling, and humanising about the sheer
unexpectedness of this. Plus no showering in between clients, nope going back
to OMG

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brini
Text-only Google cache version:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://jonmillward.com/blog/studies/deep-
inside-a-study-of-10000-porn-stars/&hl=en&tbo=d&strip=1)

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mchusma
Cool analytical approach to an interesting data set. I wish there was a better
way to see income for films, how they enter the business, and where do they
end up after. I realize this is in practice and for privacy reasons this is
nearly impossible to get.

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sirwitti
Interesting. But I think there might be porn even outside the U.S., who knew?

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brador
So....can we get that data for download?

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gwern
> An expanded report of this article that covers the methodologies and full
> results of the analysis will be available for free very soon. If you’re a
> journalist or blogger and would like early access to the PDF, or if you’d
> like to go on the list of people who will receive it by email, please
> contact me via this form.

For this and the sidebar, I'd guess he's an analyst for hire - sharing the raw
data would let people scoop him. If you want the data, you can always scrape
the IAFD yourself...

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smegel
Unnecessarily evocative title

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Meglis
It gives me a 404. Damn!

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reinhardt
Getting 404 and "Powered By LiteSpeed Web Server".. what's this?

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2510c39011c5
Quite reminiscing to last time when a guy put the vagina-hacking link on
HN...every time when something about porn posted here, the website would be
DoS'ed in hours, almost without exception...perhaps next time we should at
least have the courtesy to notify the author to mirror the site before we link
it on HN...

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tferris
Useless but in parts well designed work of an addict.

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trdtaylor
Deep inside, heu heu heu...

