Authenticity and Acting in Porn

Fakery is typical in a lot of mainstream porn: not just the obviously faked "orgasms" but, more generally, the obviously faked "pleasure".⁰ What makes such fakery particularly problematic from a feminist perspective is the fact that it is, overwhelmingly, demanded from female performers, not male performers. Male performers just aren't, as a matter of course, asked to fake orgasms or to fake pleasure.¹ On the contrary, not only do male performers almost always get to enjoy a genuine orgasm, but male orgasm is typically the climax of the scene, in many more senses than one. And if a male performer is not able to reach orgasm, then that is regarded as a crisis, one that can be resolved only by arranging for as "authentic" a faked cumshot as is possible.

In many discussions of feminist porn (for example, here and here and here and here and here), authenticity is articulated as a value that stands in contrast to that sort of fakery. The thought generally seems to be that, if we present authentic sexual encounters, if we simply allow the performers to engage sexually with each other as they see fit, then we are more likely to present authentic sexual pleasure and authentic female orgasms to the viewer.

There is much to be said for this point of view. Normalizing over-the-top expressions of sexual "pleasure" in the way a lot of porn does is damaging. That's not just because porn is, in fact, sex-ed for too many people, whether it should be or not. It's also because porn is an artistic medium, and as such porn cannot but express a point of view about its subject. One can thus critique the way it presents its subject in exactly the same ways that one can critique the way any other expressive medium presents its subject.

Of course, "porn sex" will always be different from "real sex". Movie everything will always be different from real everything. But there are good ways to vary from reality, and there are bad ways to vary from reality. And when porn presents women's sexual pleasure as a performance, it presents and embodies a vision of sexuality in which women's sexual pleasure exists only as a turn-on for men: in which women are not subjects of sexual pleasure but only objects of men's sexual desire. It needs no emphasis how problematic that point of view is.

But is the answer to that problem authenticity? I struggle with this, because "authenticity" really does matter to me as a viewer. It's important to me that the women genuinely be enjoying themselves and not just be pretending. But why? I'll admit that there's a selfish aspect to it. I don't wish to be reminded of the sexual encounters I've had in which genuine pleasure was lacking on one side or another. Besides, watching people cum, especially but not just women, is about the hottest thing there is, as far as I'm concerned. But is there something here that isn't just selfish?

There are plenty of directors and studios who have made authenticity a hallmark of their productions. A few obvious examples would be Ms Naughty, at Bright Desire; Lucie Blush at Lucie Makes Porn; most of the work of Nica Noelle; and Tristan Taormino's Rough Sex and Chemistry series. There's an almost "documentary" aspect to some of Ms Naughty's and Tristan Taormino's work, and Nica Noelle has long prided herself on presenting "Real Lovemaking, Real Orgasms". And I appreciate that. It's incredibly hot to see people who are genuinely into each other go at it with abandon, and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in feeling that way.

But isn't that just selfish, again?

In a recent essay in Esquire, Luke O'Neil compared the harm done by the stolen nudes of various celebrities to the myth prominent in some cultures that photographs steal the soul. In elaboration, he quotes from David Foster Wallace's well-known essay "Big Red Son". In the key passage, a cop, who also happens to be a porn fan, says that what he really likes is when a female performer for some reason drops the façade of performance, and he gets to see her, as she really is. O'Neil then writes:

...[T]he hottest moment of any piece of pornography [I think he means: for the typical male viewer] is the one part that the woman didn't intend for us to see. Neither her naked body, her performative sexuality, or her lustful dialogue is enough to please the viewer. We're always seeking that which is being withheld.

What O'Neil means by the woman's "performative sexuality" is the sexuality she is performing. In most porn, this is highly exaggerated at, for example, the level of non-verbal vocalization (moaning and the like), but also as far as the positions that are used, and so forth. By contrast, what the cop really loved, he said, were "those rare moments...when the starlets dropped their stylized 'fuck-me-I'm-a-nasty-girl' sneer and became, suddenly, real people".

Is that what the desire for "authenticity" in porn really is? A desire for porn stars put themselves onto the screen? "It's not just a piece of her body we're after here, it's a piece of her soul", O'Neil writes in conclusion. He's talking about the stolen photos then, but if getting to see what is withheld is what is "hottest" in porn, then the desire for "authenticity" looks like a desire that nothing be withheld: a desire not just for pieces of women's souls, but for all of their souls.

It's tempting simply to dismiss this concern, but that would be too easy. It is of a piece with the way that some "fans" insist upon calling porn stars by their "real" names, as if you are entitled a personal relationship with them just because you have seen them fuck. Whereas, in fact, as Stoya once put it, it does little more than prove that you know how to google.

But it seems to me as if this is not so much a problem with porn as with celebrity culture generally. Indeed, that is what makes O'Neil's comparison between porn and the stolen photos interesting: It points to general problems with celebrity culture and suggests something about how those problems manifest themselves in the world of adult entertainment, where, perhaps, it is particularly insidious. And it illustrates something, too, about the inability of some "fans" to recognize that porn stars are performers. The truth is that they are actors and actresses. It is ridiculous to expect them to have sex on screen as themselves, and it's ridiculous to think you "know" them because you've seen them naked and in flagrante.

The more serious problem with the emphasis on authenticity is an artistic one: As feminist pornographer Petra Joy more or less points out, it threatens to make the artistic vision of the director at best irrelevant and at worst a form of exploitation, at least when we get to the sex scenes. But there are lots of porn films in which the sex is an important part of the story, and in which it matters a lot what kind of sex the characters are having. An obvious recent example would be Jacky St James's The Submission of Emma Marx or The Sexual Liberation of Anna Lee, but one might equally mention Candida Royale's Eyes of Desire, B Skow's Voilà, Erika Lust's Cabaret Desire, and many other movies, as well. It would be silly, in such a case, to criticize the director for not just telling the performers: Do whatever you want to do.

To take a specific example, in the second sex scene in Voilà, Tony (Kris Slater) and Liz (Penny Pax) are a hetero couple who have contacted Voila (Veruca James) through some sort of personal ad so Liz can have her first sexual experience with another woman. But of course it isn't Penny Pax's first experience with another woman. And the way Penny Pax would have sex with Veruca James, if they were left to their own devices, is almost certainly quite different from the way they have sex in that scene.

But that scene is wonderful. It is, in fact, mind-bogglingly amazing. Despite the fact that it is almost forty minutes long, it is totally engaging, and that is largely because Pax does such an incredible job of acting the part of a woman having her first sexual experience with another woman. Not to mention the job James does of acting the part of a totally caring, loving first female partner for Liz. (They even model affirmative consent.) Or the job Slater does of acting the part of a guy who is totally and completely into sharing this experience with his partner. They are all fantastic. And B Skow is every bit as fantastic behind the camera, shooting the scene in such a way as to highlight everything I've just praised about it: its emotional content, as well as its sexual content.

Far too often, though, the sort of sex one gets to see in porn doesn't match the story at all. Maybe the worst transgressor I can think of is the third scene in Immortal Love, directed by Stormy Daniels.² A guy (Brendon Miller) has tried to rape our heroine (Gracie Glam), so a female vampire (Alektra Blue) seduces him in an alley, with the intention of killing him when she is done with him. But the sex does not fit the story at all. This guy is a rapist. And she is going to kill him when they are done. So this is a place that really rough sex would make a lot of sense. But what we get instead is sex that is fairly soft and romantic, which makes no sense at all.

To take a more recent example, in the second scene in Laws of Love, directed by Eddie Powell, Mariel (Jessa Rhodes) and Simon (Logan Pierce) have sex after their first date. They end up doing it in her kitchen. It's believable that they might have sex in the kitchen, but that only makes sense to me if they are so incredibly hot for each other that they can't manage to walk over to the couch, or her bedroom, or anywhere more comfortable. Unfortunately, the sex isn't nearly passionate enough to make it seem that way, and it doesn't help that a lot of the positions are pornish. So, in the end, it just doesn't feel like we are watching two people having sex after their first date.

The important thing to note here is that these criticisms do not depend at all upon how "authentic" these scenes are. What matters is that they don't fit the story. The basic problem is that Miller and Blue, and Rhodes and Pierce, don't really stay in character when they are having sex.³ That can be every bit as true when the sex is "authentic", as the second scene in Don Juan's Therapist shows very well. As just a sex scene, it is incredibly hot, but it's not remotely believable that a couple having sex for the first time would have sex the way Tori Black and Manuel Ferrara do in that scene.

One need only watch scenes in which the performers do stay in character to know how much it adds. I've already mentioned the second scene from Voilà. A few more that are deserving of special mention are the first scene from Don Juan's Therapist; the first scene from Laws of Love (which, overall, is a perfectly enjoyable film); any of the first three scenes from A Little Part of Me; anything in Dear Abby; the last scene in Love Blossoms; the last scene in Paint; the fourth scene in What Do You Want Me To Say?; anything from Torn; the second scene from The Temptation of Eve; the third scene in Love and Loss; the first or third scene from Haunted Hearts; the first, second, or fourth scene in The Submission of Emma Marx; the first or last scene in Happy Anniversary; and anything in The Sexual Liberation of Anna Lee. And there are many more.⁴ (No, it's not an accident that so many of these are from New Sensations Romance.)

Really to make sense of how authenticity does and doesn't matter, then, we need, as I mentioned earlier, to remember that the people who perform in porn are doing exactly that: Performing. Acting. The quest for "authenticity" cannot be allowed to obscure that very basic fact.

But authenticity isn't really at odds with performance: not if the performance is done well. Think about any well-acted role. If the actor or actress seems to be faking their emotions, then they are acting badly if they are acting at all. Any sense of fakery destroys our ability to suspend disbelief and enter into the world the filmmaker is constructing for us. Sexual pleasure is no different. Alleged "sexual pleasure" that is obviously faked distracts from the story the film is trying to tell, even if the story is as simple as: Couple has sex for fun. Which is a perfectly good story.⁵

It is a basic premise of "method acting" that the performer should in some sense attempt to embody the character, to assume the character's feelings as their own, drawing upon their own personal experience, if necessary, in order to empathize with the character. Applying that same idea to porn leads naturally to the idea that performers who are portraying a couple who are having sex together should be genuinely attracted to each other. If they are not, then that will very likely show through, and the scene will be unconvincing. By the same token, the best way to have sexual pleasure not seem faked is to make it not be faked. But, as reluctant as I am to admit it, we have to allow, as well, that if someone actually can convincingly act sexual pleasure or orgasm, then that is not the same as faking it, and it should not be criticized for that reason.

Maybe my favorite recent example of this kind of thing comes from any of the first three sex scenes in Our Father, which was directed by Jacky St James for Digital Sin's "Tabu Tales" series. But let me concentrate on the first scene, which features Penny Pax (again, not coincidentally) and Alec Knight. Penny has such a great relationship with her step-dad that she can talk to him about anything, including whether she should have anal sex with her boyfriend as a means of birth control. Since he is a doctor, he offers to help her by introducing her to an anal vibrator, which he follows with his cock.

It is a completely implausible story, but it's wonderful as a fantasy or, if you prefer, as a role play. And what makes the scene so good is how completely into this role play Pax and Knight seem to be. They act their parts amazingly well, carrying the fantasy right through the scene. Their enjoyment of what they are doing thus feels completely natural, flowing, as it seemed to me, out of their ability to immerse themselves in their characters and to experience what they are doing from their characters' points of view.⁶

So authenticity needn't mean simply letting performers do what they would do anyway. It might better be understood as letting the characters do what they would do anyway, which amounts to asking the performers actually to act, even when they are having sex.

I do not say that is easy to do. I am quite sure that it is very difficult to do. But that is why really good porn actors and actresses are, you guessed it, really good at what they do.

So, to sum up: If people want to have sex on screen "as themselves", then it's perfectly fine for them to do so. And if someone particularly likes "documentary-style" porn, then that's fine, too. (I do appreciate it myself.) What would be wrong would be to demand that porn stars have sex on screen as themselves and to regard anything else as "inauthentic". Authenticity is simply not incompatible with good acting. In fact, good acting requires authenticity, in the only sense that really matters here.

 

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0) This essay represents my own attempt to understand why authenticity matters to me and how. It should not be thought of as a criticism of anyone else's views on this topic. I have learned a great deal from the other people mentioned and cited.

1) I'm talking about straight porn, of course. I'd be interested to know if gay porn is different.

2) There are much worse offenders, to be sure. But most of those movies I would never even consider watching. And I don't mean to pick on Daniels. Many of her "romance" movies are terrific. The same goes for Eddie Powell, whom I'll mention in a moment.

3) I'm not necessarily blaming the performers. In fact, all of the people I just mentioned have amply demonstrated their acting capabilities in other movies and scenes. Maybe it's the fault of the directors or of someone higher up who is demanding a certain sort of scene for financial reasons.

4) Here are some more: the third or fifth scene from Eyes of Desire; the third scene from With This Ring; the last scene in Love Is a Dangerous Game; the second or third scene in Love, Marriage, and Other Bad Ideas; the last scene in Recipe for Romance; the last scene in The Fate of Love.

5) That is why I think these remarks apply every bit as much to porn that doesn't have much of a back story, such as most of the videos from Dane Jones, or Erotica X, or XArt, as it does to the plot-based movies I've mentioned. At the very least, vignette-style videos mean to present people having sex who want to be having sex with each other. If they don't even seem like they're doing that, then the video cannot but be boring and stupid.

6) By contrast, in few of the scenes in The Family That Lays Together do the performers continue, for example, to talk to each other using familial language, so the sex feels somewhat disconnected from the stories that lead up to it. I thought it was less successful than Our Father for that reason.