There are several things that mainstream entertainment is better at than porn. Mainstream, for instance, has better writers than porn; writers who can convey subtlety and pathos, and on the news side of the business, they can propagandize with the best of 'em. And that's exactly what America got to hear Thursday night on ABC's Primetime, when veteran newswoman Diane Sawyer hosted the episode titled "Young Women, Porn & Profits: Corporate America's Secret Affair."rnrn
"Girls with a Hollywood dream get to do something most of us could never imagine," Sawyer intoned. "Be there as an 18-year-old makes a decision she can never take back... Fortune 500 corporations reaping profits and looking the other way as young women go further and further... We follow a teen along the road from her first movie to the roughest side of raw, X-rated fame. Tonight an unprecedented two-year look inside the business: Porn, big money, shattered lives."rnrn
Actually, the show's title was highly misleading. Despite all the hype throughout the show about how General Motors and DirecTV were making billions of dollars off of the backs of poor deluded 18-year-olds who were tricked and coerced into performing more and more graphic sex acts, Sawyer wasn't able to get any of the major companies to speak on camera, and had to settle for a PR guy from AOL Time Warner. But more on that later.rnrn
Instead, the show revolved around porn star Belladonna, tracing her career from her entry into the business three years ago at 18 through her recent win at the AVN Awards... and managing to convey the impression that that she's trapped in a lifestyle and occupation that's eating her up inside. And to be fair, there are a couple of points where, at Sawyer's urging, the brunette breaks into tears, claiming that her constant smile is really just a fa?ade... but somehow, those moments seem at odds with the fact that after a year in the business, doing gangbangs and double-anals, Belladonna left to go home, but came back allegedly because "the money was too good" - so good, in fact, that she managed to put her sister through college with it, and even brought her mother, who clucked in disapproval at her daughter's profession, out to Los Angeles to be her assistant for a series project that never worked out.rnrn
But Bella isn't the only one who's been exploited. In fact, but for a 60-second clip of some major stars talking about how they liked the fame and money, Sawyer didn't manage to find anyone who was happy in XXX... and she talked to plenty of them, including actress-turned-producer/director Ona Zee.rnrn
And then, of course, there were the inevitable "experts" like former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, who's never spent a single minute on a porn set, yet knows all he needs to know about one.rnrn
"They're not protected," Koop said disapprovingly. "They don't even have workmen's compensation. We have an industry that is making billions of dollars a year, is spreading to cable television and the Internet, and yet their employees are considered to be throw-away people... They [companies] don't want to get involved, and people don't care whether they get involved or not. You have to remember that even the people who enjoy looking at pornography really despise the people they're watching, and they have no sense of protection for them."rnrn
It probably escaped Koop's attention that most performers are treated quite well on the set, are usually well-paid for their long hours considering the level of expertise many of them bring to the business, have HIV and STD tests on a monthly basis, and have a lower proportion of those diseases than does the average California citizen, according to statistics gathered by Miss Sharon Mitchell of AIM Healthcare.rnrn
And as for whether those who watch porn despise the performers... well, maybe Koop's been looking at too many porn gossip sites, where the creeps who do feel that way tend to accumulate, and not enough time listening to the adoring fans who line up for autographs at the trade shows.rnrn
But Koop was undeterred by the suggestion that performers come into the industry willingly.rnrn
"I don't think anybody deserves the kinds of things that happen in the pornographic industry," Koop said after having been baited by Sawyer's question. "Remember, these are kids, most of them; these are ordinary people who have made bad decisions or who have been pushed into bad decisions... What happens to youngsters who are used in the pornographic industry is almost indescribable."rnrn
Somehow, nobody got around to mentioning that several of those "kids" make more money in one year than Koop did in his entire tenure as Surgeon General.rnrn
But innuendo was the name of Sawyer's game, presenting images calculated to shock and disgust Primetime's audience... who undoubtedly tuned into the show hoping to catch a glimpse of skin, but were disappointed.rnrn
Among the images Sawyer trotted out were:rnrn
? The Sabrina Johnson gangbang, where the actress had to put ice on her pussy after a particularly vigorous fuck - something Sawyer reported with feigned shock.rnrn
? Jonathan Morgan joking, in usual Morgan fashion, now taken grimly out of context, saying, "The new hot fresh talent is always better than the old, used..." trailing the sentence off with a chuckle.rnrn
? One actress who admitted that she'd "never had this much money or attention" in her life, "so she suppresses her regret, saying 'I'll just try to close my eyes and imagine I'm somewhere else.'"rnrn
And then there are the tossed-off derogations that most clearly show Sawyer's agenda shining through:rnrn
? "Tonight we are going to take you into the parallel universe of pornography in America today."rnrn
? "So the same day Samantha leaves Jim South, she agrees to get an AIDS test, and the next day she's in front of a camera, having sex... and then the regret. She says afterward she took a long hot shower, thinking about what she'd done."rnrn
? "Angel, the girl from the Midwest who wanted to be a regular actress, says she let herself get lured in, and afterward she's desperate to get out."rnrn
? "A couple of other notes: There are four female porn stars who have spoken out publicly saying they contracted AIDS and one of them is bringing suit." (Somehow, the fact that this happened five years ago, and that the incident led to the formation of AIM Healthcare and a much more rigorous testing program in the industry get no mention.)rnrn
? "It's probably not a surprise that many of these actors came from troubled homes or a history of abuse," Sawyer claimed, offering no evidence, yet continued, "Though it did surprise us how many of the performers said they came from intense religious backgrounds, like [Belladonna], from a Mormon home so strict she couldn't play with Barbie dolls because of their voluptuous bodies."rnrn
And of Belladonna's choice to continue in porn'rnrn
"I wanted attention. I wanted people to love me; I don't know why," said Bella, to which Sawyer rejoined, "Hers will be a searing odyssey of confusion, unimaginable choices, and a journey into a kind of hell."rnrn
Turns out that "hell" was doing anal in her first feature, having her partner hold his hand on her throat during a scene, and later participating in a 12-guy gangbang set in a prison cell... for which this girl from a poor Mormon family was paid $4000.rnrn
"But will she really get over that first day?" Sawyer asked rhetorically. "She said she showed up expecting one regular sex scene, but the director said he needed more, a different kind of sex... She says afterwards she was shattered but she just didn't know how to refuse."rnrn
Apparently they no longer teach kids in school how to "Just say no."rnrn
Sadly, Ona Zee confirmed Sawyer's coercion allegations.rnrn
"You show expecting to do one thing and then you do something else and then you're trapped because you planned on the money you're going to make," Zee agreed, neglecting to mention that in the past, she herself had attempted to get actresses on her own sets to do more than was originally bargained for.rnrn
Later, Sawyer shows Zee, who's described as a porn "reformer," saying, "The women want to create an overall ambiance that it's all - it's easy, it's fun, it's great; we never get a yeast infection; we're happy; we don't have to worry about it, it never hurts... I see it ['the reality'] every day. I mean, I see girls come to the set drunk, not in their bodies."rnrn
Another industry member who can be counted on for a soundbite that will make the industry look bad is "veteran porn star" Bill Margold.rnrn
"I get 18, 19-year-old girls who just don't understand that once you do this, you are sociologically damned forever. I do not think that people are capable, at 18 years old, of making life-changing decisions."rnrn
And later, "These [people] are deluded that the X-rated industry is a stepping stone into the real world. The X-rated industry is a tombstone to the real world."rnrn
At several points, Sawyer implied that just about everybody in the sex biz makes piles of money - even the house party dildo ladies - except the performers, but it's just an attempt to pit industry members against each other.rnrn
And of course, the worst offenders are those who deliver porn by cable and satellite... and who were, oddly enough, savvy enough not to fall for Sawyer's entreaties for comments.rnrn
"So, how many millions and millions of dollars do these Fortune 500 companies make from porn?" Sawyer asked, rhetorically. "Well, we can't tell you because they don't publicize it anywhere at all. We went through their financial statements and there's not one mention of money made from the sex movie market. But one industry analyst we spoke with estimated that the combination of cable and satellite outlets makes about a billion dollars a year on the adult movie market. And the hotel industry is also reaping the spoils. Major hotel chains, some 40 percent of all the hotel rooms in the country, offer adult movies ranging from soft to hardcore, so it's a lot of easy cash for hotels, millions. Again, you'll never find a mention on any financial statement."rnrn
After that kind of sandbagging, is it any wonder that the chairman of General Motors, whom Sawyer tried to contact, wouldn't speak to her or allow any GM employee to do so either'rnrn
But after the AOL-Time-Warner PR flack admitted that some of his outlets show hardcore, but that that decision "was driven by consumers," Sawyer followed up with, "No one expressed a willingness to take responsibility for the young girls helping bring in the profits."rnrn
Sawyer held Bella up as the typical ing?nue, and when it was eventually revealed that the woman, who early on is heard swearing that she'd never use drugs, engaged in some drug use, and later had a whirlwind rocky relationship - a "childish infatuation," in Sawyer's words - with fellow performer Nacho Vidal while shooting in Europe for Elegant Angel, the viewer can't help but come away with the idea that all porn newcomers go through something similar. Industry insiders, however, know that that's far from the truth.rnrn
And of course, the show had to trot out Bella's parents, with mom wondering if she raised the kid wrong - "I've wondered, was it because I had a divorce? Was it because I raised her in the church, or was I not rich enough? Was I not humble enough?" asks mom - and Sawyer noting that dad was a bishop in the Mormon church... and that Bella was molested by a boyfriend at 14 and attempted suicide.rnrn
For all Sawyer's talk about how porn people took advantage of Bella, it's clear that that's exactly what Sawyer herself did, leading the teen to "confess" ambivalence about the industry and bemoan her "loss of sexual privacy" and her "crying on the inside," all of which is belied by, among other things, the actress's behavior at trade shows and among friends in the industry.rnrn
But no; according to Sawyer, Bella's just "another girl considered disposable by a business feeding a giant appetite" who "is no longer the new girl in the business; she's made 200 to 300 movies with scores of sex partners and she has to do ever-riskier things to earn her money."rnrn
So there you have it: Half-truth piled upon innuendo sandwiched with ignorance... and all of it presented as fact for consumption by an equally ignorant public.rnrn
At one point, Koop suggests that there should be congressional hearings into the mechanics of how the porn industry runs. Maybe he should think about similar hearings for "news" programs with agendas so profound that nearly every fact must be twisted to conform to it.rnrn
And maybe the adult industry will finally learn that Hollywood, which comes sniffing around our soundstages every "sweeps" period, is not the industry's friend and will fuck us whenever it suits its purpose.
