Bad porn reprise

Many people wrote me with comments on my essay
Why Does Porn Got To Hurt So Bad?. For all of those who
sent praise, thank you. It’s actually nice to know there are so many
people who would like to reject the bad-porn aesthetic. For all
of those who refrained from calling down fire and brimstone on me for messing with smut, also thank you. I’d have ignored you,
but thank you anyway.

I got two responses I thought were particularly interesting.
One was from a gentleman who works as a pornographer. He
opined that I overestimated the porn industry by supposing that
bad porn reflected market demand. The real problem (he claims)
is that it’s hard to find women who simultaneously don’t look
hard and jaded yet are willing to bare all for the camera. Most
outfits, he said, don’t even try. They settle for the fake-pearl-and-synthoboob look out of laziness, knowing it’s crap
but will sell well enough.

This doesn’t explain to me why, if Veronika Zemanova can look like a girl one might willingly take to bed in one picture and an unnatural womanoid-thing in another, they don’t try to photograph
women like her in the more natural mode more often. But perhaps
this one was just a trick of the light.

Another respondent proposes the interesting theory that the
girls are dressed (or rather undressed) to look inaccessible
because if they weren’t, there might be an epidemic of stalking
as various creeps and wackos tried to get next to them.

It would be touching to believe the porn industry cares that
much about its performers, but I’m skeptical.

Finally, I got mail from
“German Lucy”, who said she was honored to appear in my
essay and quite enjoyed it. Rather to my astonishment, her email style
suggests that she really is “as sweet-natured and unjaded as she
looks”. She answered my questions plausibly and thoughtfully and didn’t even pitch me to sign up for her site.

Holy Diogenes, Batman! I think I might have found the
one honest porn star…