A Labor History Of Porn Work

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So I'm wondering if we could go a little bit through the history of porn work. Because I think one look I'm this is a silly thing to say but I became fascinated by this by watching the deuce. Which kind of goes through it. Which is a great show if people want to check that out. But you know it begins really in the 1970s the golden age of pornography. Where you have these big theatrical releases like Deep Throat. And then of course the Dynamics change really rapidly. If you don't mind taking us through that history. Absolutely yeah I'll try to give you the quick and dirty version. Which is to say that that the kind of I think one common narrative is that there was this golden age of porn that the deuce touches on but also I think rightfully shows that you know making Loops in the 70s didn't look that much different from making one-off scenes for Gonzo Productions in the 2010s. What changes is not and this is where I think that common narrative goes wrong. Is the sense that porn used to be filmic that it was mostly films like the devil and Miss Jones or deep throat. That it used to be real acting and then that changed over time. But in reality, since the Advent of porn on film most Productions have been low-budget. Most performers have been pretty low-paid. What's changed hugely though and this is moving alongside shifts in technology and access to distribution is the cost of production and thus also the availability of self-production for everyday performers. So what you see in the news is that even though production is pretty low budget it is in some ways exclusive to people who can afford the camera equipment and have access to often mob Affiliated distribution networks. and all of this and so we see just this Progressive erosion of that kind of Monopoly as technology gets democratized in a sense. so video in the 1980s is cheaper and somewhat more accessible but people are still subject to some kind of calcified distribution network. and that gave old-school Production Studios and producers a lot of power to determine the conditions of work. that maintains through much of the DVD era. but now in the age of only fans, anyone can produce and distribute their own content. and that has had a huge shift for what that means for working conditions. So does that, that's my quick version.