“No animals were harmed during the making of this film” can be put on movies, even if animals died during the production, as long as cameras weren’t rolling at the time.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/why-the-no-animals-were-harmed-movie-disclaimer-doesnt-mean-much/

@Lacey,
Your third sentence here should read,,,,”I understand how performers would be willing to risk THEIR FELLOW PERROMERS SAFETY to keep the industry from going under…..”

The question isnt what YOU are comfortable doing,,its what your partner is comfortable doing,,,,,,and no performer knows this answer regarding the person they are working with,,,,,and that is why the harm reduction program is a fucking joke,

@erik

I disagree! Been to the circus lately?

Existing labor laws and BBP regulations are not enforced to nearly the degree that animal welfare is in this country. Even trash & lawn height is more enforced than porn performer safety with few towns not opting to remove debris or mow a lawn/swale and place a lien on the property for the service.

@Lacey

I think I got your point when I equated the thrill of gambling to sexual thrill and wondered how it would be okay or legal to satisfy the sexual in ways that extend even beyond what’s illegal for gambling.

As to performer safety vs props (animate or inanimate) I get what you’re saying…why the fuck are we making a stink out of some chickens/fish when every labor law is tossed out the window in general with the industry?

@erik

For me the consent thing never even entered the picture despite the great lengths to which it has been commented on through this thread.

For me the questions I’m trying to wrap my head around have more to do with how we have treated animals in commerce, specifically gambling that is absolutely acceptable in other countries but we outlaw as abhorrent.

IG cockfighting is illegal in the US but widely accepted in Latin America. Living in Florida we had neighbors who raised chickens and goats for Santeria sacrifices, as long as they didn’t sacrifice the animals with in town limits it was legal and despite a few neighbors disgust and fears in 15 years they proved to be great neighbors who never once tried to co-opt or convert my kids to anything beyond how to toss chicken feed.

Where do we draw the line? Is it okay to squish roaches, spiders or beetles barefoot or with stiletto heels? Squish mice but not squirrels or chickens..piles of maggots but not fish?

Is it okay for film but not gambling? Would it be okay for filming or gambling in a controlled environment like MMA or greyhound racing? If so how would it be sanctioned with groups like PETA who would fight it?

“goes against every single animal instinct there is and we’re all animals.”

This way of trying to equate our brains as equal with other animals is bad basic biology. We have evolved well beyond “animal instinct” in many scenarios. You make the case that liking something sexually that goes against “animal instinct” is so weird. Lots of our behaviors go way outside those basic “animal instinct” lines. You also have a very hard to understand streak of acting like porn is more accepted than it should be. This just seems silly. They aren’t accepted by society in any large way at all. Doing any porn is still a giant black mark.

Again, your whole point about “Animals have protections, performers don’t” misses the basic idea of levels of need and vulnerability. It isn’t apples to apples. Without these restrictions the animals lives would mean NOTHING on many sets. As you state (I disagree) performers have no rights and are not in anywhere near this level of danger. The group that has no ability to make decisions and will be killed without protections (animals) is at greater risk than the group that has consent and risk/reward thinking and is not in mortal peril (performers).

Are you joking? The end of my post is all questions. None of which you answered. Questions signify the opposite of having answers. “the whole consent thing”??? Wait, what does this mean? People don’t believe that humans can give consent to do weird things? Please clarify this “consent thing” that some don’t agree to. Your post was about whether killing the animals should be legal. You clearly were leaning/arguing that it should be. I was asking the commenters to clearly state agreement.

I hear you. The economics of the situation are not lost on me. I fully understand how performers would be willing to risk their own safety to keep the industry from going under if a condom mandate was enforced.

I get it. I also think there has to be some way to protect performers while giving the audience what they want… concessions have been made to accomplish this.

One of the major reasons Kink.com is popular is for the simple reason that they conduct (paid for) interviews before & after scenes insuring the public that no one was actually hurt or forced to do something they didn’t want to do… This shows just how much the public wants to ensure no one is actually being intentionally hurt or forced to do anything they don’t want to do…

The flip side of this is whether kink.com would actually put up videos of performers complaining? I’ve personally never seen one?

But, the fact is the public WANTS THIS.. even while jerking off to the fantasy aspect of rape. It makes many of them feel better to know that no one was purposely hurt and it was just a fantasy plot line of hardcore kinky “real” sex.

But, do you honestly think Kink is going to film an interview with Cameron Bay regarding sucking on a bleeding penis? The entire crew decided this was appropriate without consulting medical professionals. Is the public not supposed to find this disturbing?

This is generally the point where the questioning of consent comes in…

She fully consented to suck a bloody penis. She is an adult capable of making her own decisions. Am I honestly supposed to think she’s not fucking insane for sucking on someone’s bloody dick? That’s a little ridiculous.

The public recognizes that these situations actually happen and the porn industry sits around complaining about people being concerned for their personal welfare…

All because the public isn’t delusional enough to believe these kinds of incidents don’t happen… in porn or any other industry on earth.

Maybe I just don’t find the questioning of consent as offensive as you do? I guess I just view it as a normal human reaction to other humans being involved in dangerous situations as opposed to some kind of behavior trying to imprison or control people.

My personal opinion is that the questioning of consent in a scene and an active fight to actually stop the scene from happening, based on opinions or assumptions, are vitally different.

For example, I wouldn’t find it offensive or insulting if someone questioned the consent and/or safety aspects of a stunt that was performed. Many people think stunt performers are fucking insane for what they do and most performers would readily agree!! It’s dangerous. You can get hurt. You may even die.

Believe me, they’re not sitting around acting offended because someone questioned their mental abilities… Hahahaha… 🙂

Hi Lacey–I don’t disagree with the basic gist of most of what you said here, which, however, has nothing to do with my last reply to you.

I’m all for reasonable protections for workers in every field. I personally don’t oppose a condom rule; I would never in a million years pressure any performer to not use a condom or to do anything that s/he wasn’t completely comfortable with or that wasn’t safe. I would love it if other companies were required to be as conscientious as I am.

My only point, way back when I first posted, was that it does no one any good to treat porn performers as if they are not behaving rationally when they agree to shoot a porn scene, whether there are condoms being used or not. Risks and benefits are things that everyone has to weigh. And if the alternatives to working in porn are really really bad–and for a lot of people they truly are WAY worse than the downsides to working in porn–then a lot of performers will be invested in and support anything that helps the adult business stay alive and profitable. This is not stupid–it might be perfectly rational and self-interested for a performer to oppose, say, condom rules, if s/he believes that a condom rule will mean s/he will not be able to support him/herself in porn any longer, and will have to take some horrible 50 hour a week, minimum wage paying manual labor dead end job.

Now, having said that, I reiterate that there are TONS of ways to make a living in the adult business that have none of the risks we’ve been talking about here–markets that don’t involve any fluid transfers at all. Fetish, glamor, solo cam, solo phone calls, softcore, etc. I would be more than happy if more mainstream porn performers took an interest in that side of the business–they are certainly free to. It might even be the most rational thing for them to do.

@Alex –
I don’t know anything about you. Jilted mentioned you were a producer. I quickly looked you up on Google. It seems you shoot soft core with choreographed scenes. I have family and occasionally work in mainstream stunts. With that said, I’m going to use that connection here.

As I’m sure you know there’s a huge difference between choreographed fight scenes and 2 people just beating the shit out of each other…. especially with no regulations in place or regulations that are almost never followed…

The mainstream porn industry repeats this motto that “it’s all just fantasy… it’s not real.” But, that’s bullshit.
The plot lines in porn are fantasy. The “action” is anything but fantasy. Performers aren’t choreographing sex. They’re *literally* fucking each other, shoving things into orifices, getting electrocuted, bleeding and a number of other things.

This isn’t an HBO movie. It’s hardcore fucking that can have serious consequences. There really is nothing necessarily “fake” about the action. No one is saying performers are children who need someone to hold their hand.

But, the fact is in the majority of porn produced today there isn’t one single protective measure in place other than mandated condoms which they don’t follow anyway. The testing system is an after-the-fact harm reduction program.

It’s the same theory as citizens bitching because they have to wear seat belts. I couldn’t imagine a movement where people protested in the streets about having to wear seat belts because the government is treating them as sub-humans who aren’t capable of making their own decisions.

The mainstream stunt industry follows every rule, OSHA regulation, SAG rule on the books and they perform some of the riskiest shit on the face of the earth. Those car chases are choreographed, performers aren’t jumping out of 10 story windows onto a car, the guns are fake, the blood is fake, the fight scenes are choreographed. Every single one of these rules is done for one purpose and one purpose only: Safety.

The porn industry doesn’t even require a medic on set…. and then they sit around bitching because people are concerned about their safety while complaining that people being concerned is treating them as children? Are you serious?

If you took the rules and regulations in porn and applied them to any other industry on earth, you would have an entire revolution on your hands.
But, it’s just porn. Who fucking cares. Someone has to do it.

No one is trying to shut the porn industry down. There are plenty of performers who have stated the fact that they would like to have condoms used during their scenes..
These same performers aren’t stupid enough to recognize the fact that they probably won’t get hired again if they speak up. To think otherwise, would be calling those same performers stupid for wanting to protect themselves…

And, we all know the answer is “then they shouldn’t do porn.” Says who? What if they enjoy doing porn while being protected? They just won’t get any work then… is that necessarily fair? That’s generally where this debate leads…

Performers who would like to use condoms, but know they won’t work if they speak up are players in this game to. They shouldn’t be discarded simply because they want some form of protection….

I could never imagine a day where someone told a stunt performer: you’re required to do this stunt and you’re not allowed to protect yourself or you’re fired. Even stunt performers aren’t that stupid… Shit, even wrestlers and MMA fighters are required to have doctors on site to assess bodily injury because they understand that fighters or performers aren’t always going to make the best health decisions in the middle of a fight. It doesn’t mean they’re treating those people as sub-humans who aren’t capable of making decisions for themselves… everyone recognizes that it’s dangerous and the people involved don’t get offended because the public worries about their safety.

But porn performers… who fucking cares. That’s the sad truth.