‘Date My Porn Star’ write up

‘Date My Porn Star’ was a bit of a disappointment; it’s a reality TV show, rather than a piece of hard-hitting investigative documentary filmmaking. It comes across more like one of those ‘semi scripted’ reality TV shows that are so cheap and easy for TV companies to make, since it follows such a predictable and formulaic story arc for the three porn using protagonists.

Since it wasn’t investigative journalism, we only got to see the porn sets that the pornographers were happy for us to see, and most of it was pretty anodyne (or maybe I’m just jaded). The focus of the programme is on the three male porn users and their ‘journey’, rather than on any of the porn performers. Towards the end of the programme there was a live-streamed ‘gang bang’ that did show a female performer becoming distressed and exhausted.

Documentaries like Hard Core, or the ‘Dark Side of Porn’ series that Channel 4 broadcast around 2005 did a much better job of revealing the reality of the LA based porn industry (one thing I particularly remember – pity I wasn’t taking notes back then – a woman who worked in gonzo porn, frequently doing double-anals saying: one day, I’m going to get hurt real bad and my ass is going to fall out). Or there is this footage (TRIGGER WARNING, the content is very disturbing), if you want to see what it’s like when there isn’t a Channel 4 film crew there as well.

‘Date My Porn Star’ will still be available to watch on 4OD for just over a week now, and below are the notes I took while I was watching (tidied up a bit, but otherwise recorded in the order things occurred in the programme).

The protagonists: Kevin, straight, 20 years old, a very heavy porn user, has had sex with 60+ women, but could only ejaculate with 20 of them. Jessica James (JJ) his chosen LA ‘date’.

Jonathan, 40, wheelchair user since a car accident at 20, straight, porn a massive part of his life, Tanya Tate (TT) his ‘date’.

Danny, 23, gay, ‘Justin Dean'(?) in porn (has done 6 shoots), Cody Cummings (CC) his ‘date’.

They visit a porn set in London before going to LA (straight and gay shoots – gay performers had their faces blurred out for some reason).

CC: straight, uses straight porn before shooting. All his films are soft core, no actual sex – ‘fake’ to Danny.

JJ: 700 scenes over 10 years, started her own company in 2008. During a shoot most scenes acted out first for stills shots – every position etc held motionless with faked expressions, followed by filming of the actual scenes. “Plenty of artificial lubricant” used. Have to cut in middle of scene because of traffic noise from outside.

Next visit ‘Immorallive.com’ / ‘Immoral.com’, ‘Porno Dan’ looking for new ‘girls’. During conveyor belt auditions the women have to strip, do a lap dance; one a mother of three, getting a PhD in quantum physics. Youngest, Pricilla, 19, ‘only’ had sex with 3 men in her ‘real life’. Porno Dan didn’t like the in depth questions to Priscilla from the two younger men.

Jonathon didn’t like the younger men questioning the women, and discussing the women’s motivations with each other, called it judgmental, and said the women were there to present themselves as objects to be sold.

TT (“never done double anal”) shooting a mother/daughter incest scene in a mansion in the LA hills. Jonathon really loved what he saw.

Back to Porno Dan (PD) for ‘Fuck a Fan’ live show – not half way through at 2 hours.

PD: not that much demand for performers, less than 1000 [didn’t catch exactly how many 100s, and 4OD player doesn’t let me pause or rewind] [EDIT: it’s 500] women working, need to dance, escort to survive economically, majority escort.

Performer ‘Nicky Sex’ exhausted, looks distressed, starts crying and temporarily walks off set. Goes on for hours into the night, all live-streamed so no editing.

CC has a daughter who no longer talks to him after he told her about his porn career.

JJ “Not really a promiscuous person” “monogamous”. Both female performers quiz their ‘dates’ on their sex and relationship difficulties, and theorise that porn was having a deleterious effect.

Then all three men meet ex performer Vanessa Belmond, left industry a few months ago. Started stripping at 18, started in porn at 19 as ‘Alexa Cruise’ [spelling?]. Caught Chlamydia from her first scene, and has had 3 or 4 more Chlamydia infections, testing inadequate. Had to take painkillers for first anal scene, had vaginal and anal tears many times. Physically hard on the throat (“throat fucking”), had throat bleed, had scenes with 8 to 10 men. Left after 7 years.

~One month later~ Kevin now, in his words “less of a misogynist”. Danny had a couple of offers from porn companies, turned them down and decided to go to university instead. Jonathon not enjoying porn any more, considers the trip to LA a “wake up call”.