I watched an interesting documentary yesterday, titled After Porn Ends. It's all about the lives of former porn stars, interviewing them about how they got into doing porn, what they felt about their experiences, and what life has been for them ever since. I'd never heard of most of the ones they focused on, as they were mostly from the 80s and 90s, though two of them are more recent than that. Either way, by the end of it, I felt like I knew who these people were.
They also had a lot of input from a couple of journalists who cover the adult industry, and from Nina Hartley, former performer turned therapist.
The thesis appears to be that the experience of being a porn star creates permanent scars regardless of who they are. Some, like MENSA member Asia Carrera, seemed to fully embrace it with her eyes open, milk it for all it was worth, and then walk away, supposedly intact. Her scars would be exposed near the end of the film.
On the other end of the spectrum is Crissy Moran, who by all accounts came into porn with a fragile disposition and was left completely (and perhaps permanently) broken by it. The look in her eyes, and the almost cowering manner in which she talks about her experiences, brings PTSD to mind. The part of her testimony that got to me was when she talked about fan mail she would get, that told her they most admired her 'innocence', when what they were really picking up on was the psychic burden of having sex with strangers on camera. In other words, that submissive quality they loved wasn't acting, it was her sense of self literally being subsumed.
Also of note was a male performer named Randy West, who apparently was Jenna Jameson's first male on-camera partner, and enjoyed a long run in the business. He now lives alone, and plays golf for charity in his (seemingly plentiful) spare time. Randy is a guy who appears gregarious and fairly centered, but when he talks about his life, the sadness in his eyes is apparent. You can tell that in many ways, he's envious of friends he has outside of the porn industry, who have normal family and social lives. There's also a surprising moment where he admits to his deep regret for not nurturing a romantic relationship with porn star Tera Patrick when he had the chance more than a decade ago.
And that's the recurring theme through all of these stories: that porn doesn't go away when it ends. One former star's teenage daughter won't let her attend any of her school functions, for fear she'll be recognized and therefore humiliate her among her classmates. Another laments that his charity opportunities are limited by his past, while well-known crooked politicians are welcomed with open arms. Another was let go by her real estate company when they discovered her past, saying that they were too high profile and depended too much on conservative clientele to take a chance on continuing their association with her.
The whole thing hits me in a personal way, too, because I have a past (and sort of present) that I'm not altogether proud of either. I've done things that aren't considered "acceptable" by wide swaths of the population. But the difference is that porn stars do it in an internationally public way. They're idolized in the darkness by the same public that treats them as pariahs in the light of day.
Much like the show Intervention, the documentary ends with a screen text post-script, telling us what is presently happening with those who were interviewed. A couple are back in porn, after professing earlier in the film their relief and pride from having emancipated themselves from it. One is in rehab, and though they don't say so, I have to think that all or most of them are in therapy. Porn never ends, even after it's over.
Highly recommended.
Artistic Tart
