By: Daniel Amston

The Price of Pleasure is a documentary examining the effects that the commercial porn industry has had, and will continue to have, on our society. It examines not only the general undertones of exploitation, manipulation, and degradation featured in many mainstream porn films but also the leading causes as to how our society got to this point and what the future, with regards to porn, is leading.

As one commentator familiar with the porn industry remarks, “Many porn employers would say that these women choose to do this work as opposed to fast food restaurants or other crappy jobs and choose to make real money in the porn industry.” It’s just not attractive for any individual to work in a degrading job getting minimum wage, especially considering the fact that the cost of living has significantly increased, and thus also the cost of raising a family. Some women feel it necessary for them to sell their bodies in order to get more money, though invariably, in the long run, porn-star performers only last in the industry, largely, for 5-10 years on average (Jenna Jameson and Ron Jeremy are anomalous within the industry). While this may look like freedom of choice in professions, the underbelly of the situation is anything but.

This is where capitalism and the free market serve to imprison individuals and limit the potential and possibilities. For one, women are statistically more likely to be underscored in any professional environment—and as unfair as that is, this explains partially why some women chose to work in the porn industry, since it provides instantaneous benefits that depreciate over an extended period of time. Also, the porn industry provides possibly the best metaphor for the working environment as it is now: tell employees it’s a choice to work there, then convince them that they won’t have any possibilities if they leave the company since the market looks so bad, give them perks and benefits to make them believe that the company is their friend, and then, once they’re practically co-dependent on the industry, try to screw them as hard as possible until their best years are used up and they can no longer look in the mirror with any dignity.

But to get beyond the personal effects of porn on the individual performers, we move along to the societal effects. How does porn, on a large scale, not a personal (so please don’t think that either we or The Price of Pleasure is talking about each individual), affect how society interacts?

Well, The Price of Pleasure makes repeated reference to statistical exponentials with how much porn our society is watching as well as an overall increase in the amount of violent, demeaning porn that society is watching. This is not to suggest that every individual who watches a porn flick will instantly become violent towards women, but it does imply a causal relation to the development of how our society views women: generally as objects to be exploited for personal pleasure or gain. I mean, what other species, or civilization (past or present), has been so willing to find new and crueler ways to repeatedly and sexually exploit its females?

Furthermore, The Price of Pleasure remarks on the growing proliferation of child-themed, or pedophilia, porn. In 2002 the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a ban on virtual child porn allowing the porn industry to produce images that simulate virtual, young kids and portray young adults sexually. Just like oil companies and centralized banks, the porn industry has its own Washington lobbyists going to Congress to by-pass laws that would prevent them from manipulating age-reducing software to make porn performers look underage. While it is still illegal to use someone under the age of 18 in any porn film, that does not prevent the porn industry from taking an 18 year old and using digital software, much like Photoshop, to make them look younger. It takes no stretch of the imagination to speculate what consumers are thinking about when they buy and watch these films.

But an essential feature of the documentary The Price of Pleasure is that it doesn’t outright condemn porn, or even the exploration of sexual proclivities, like certain fetishes. Rather it sparks a healthy dialogue with the rest of the community, i.e. people who watch it, asking them if this is what they want, if this is what they imagined the Sexual Revolution would turn out to be like. Invariably, while the Sexual Revolution was an initial cause that led to the current booming porn industry, it isn’t the sole reason. The Sexual Revolution, for one, doesn’t espouse the ideology of using one’s body for profit like the current porn industry does. Rather, the Sexual Revolution was about exploration into what our bodies, and, inevitably, our sexuality meant surpass previous propaganda telling society that sex and the human body were perverse. The porn industry just happened to commodify and exploit such healthy exploration in order to turn a profit.

* Be sure to surf our site for more articles of your interest! – TJ