LAS VEGAS, NV—Since retiring (more or less) from the adult industry in 2013, former performer Aurora Snow has supplemented her income with a series of articles about adult industry topics which generally have been published by Newsweek's The Daily Beast—but Snow's fortunes now seem to have taken a turn for the better, with the publication in mainstream business magazine Fortune of her article, "This Is What it’s Really Like to Work in Porn."
The article makes some excellent points, many garnered from Snow's experiences in the industry beginning in 2000, even while she gives some rein to a few of her personal bugaboos—such as the "[r]ecent allegations against porn star James Deen" and her claims of having been banned by at least one studio for insisting that the actor she was paired with had an up-to-date STD test, about which she says, "Some directors and companies are willing to look the other way when it comes to slightly expired STD tests, leaving it up to performers to fend for themselves."
Still, she makes some excellent points, perhaps the most important of which is that porn is fantasy, and that despite the imaginings of "fans, consumers and even some industry insiders," porn stars aren't necessarily motivated by their "unquenchable desire for sex," nor do their on-screen personas necessarily have any correlation to their private lives.
"When I showed up on set as Aurora Snow, my demeanor changed," she admits. "The Aurora I crafted was a bubbly airhead with confidence and sexual prowess. As just me, well, Amber was the opposite. Think of it as method acting, but you’re playing the same character film after film."
Among other differences between making porn and other workplaces: Nudity is widespread and casual; sometimes performers are called upon to perform "intrusive bodily acts"; they pay for their own wardrobe and are expected to bring new outfits to each set (though many recycle); and those who arrive late and/or unprepared don't get rehired a lot.
Somewhat troubling, however, is her unexamined repetition of blanket statements such as the one from Dan "Porno Dan" Leal, who claimed, "Every man is on penis pill supplements or injects. You have to be, and any guy who says he isn’t is lying." That actually isn't true for a lot of performers.
However, she does the industry and its performers a service when she quotes director Glenn King talking about the physical rigors of the job: "Hollywood uses stuntmen for a reason. You don’t typically see someone damaging a movie star. But … anyone who performs in the porn industry is a stuntman or stunt woman of some sort. At the same time, while you are trying to create realism, you still have to put safety into your stunt. It’s a difficult line to find."
Snow also reports the experience of relatively new performer Summer Brielle, who told Snow that her outlook has evolved during her time in the industry, with Brielle noting, "Often times, a young girl hasn't grown into her own womanhood, sexuality, or independence. So she's having to deal with all of this at once."
Snow ends her article with the truism, "The daily grind of a porn star is less exciting than the hype. It’s a fragmented business with a revolving door of disposable performers." But while some performers have great staying power—think Nina Hartley, Jessica Drake, Francesca Lé, even Snow herself—few in the industry would disagree with those sentiments.
