Bramblethorn
Sleep-deprived
- Joined
- Feb 16, 2012
- Posts
- 18,664
This is gross and exploitative - sex should be about joy and happiness not inflicting self evident misery - what a shame to post this abuse of a poor, wretched woman.
Sighs
Méli Mélo
#metoo
Okay, let's talk #metoo for a moment. Not going to be a fun post here, tw for discussion of RL abuse.
One of my favourite movies of all time is "Frida". I'll watch just about anything with Salma Hayek in it (maybe not "Sausage Party") but this is maybe her best. Frida Kahlo was bisexual, and there are a couple of scenes in the film which explore that. The sex portrayed in those scenes is completely consensual: no BDSM, no coercion, just consensual passion between two women who are very much into one another. I loved the whole film, I would've loved it without those scenes, but they certainly didn't detract from my enjoyment.
Late last year, I read Salma Hayek's account of making that movie. From that I learned that during the making of that movie she'd been subjected to absolutely vile abuse by Harvey Weinstein, that he had effectively blackmailed her into shooting those scenes, and that she'd been so upset that she was crying and vomiting on set and had to take a tranquilizer to get through them. The sex portrayed was consensual, but the RL story behind why those scenes were filmed was anything but.
When I watched the film, I didn't pick up any of that. Not a trace. Because Hayek is an actress, and feigning emotions (with her director and editor's help) is her job. The whole industry is about creating illusions.
This goes both ways. Scenes that look happy and consensual may have been miserable and exploitative; scenes that look like "self evident misery" may have been happy fun for all concerned. Not every actress who cries on screen is actually sad.
If you want to try to ensure that the porn you watch/buy is ethically produced, and that the performers are all happy consenting adults, that's great. I make a point of subscribing to ethically-produced stuff because I want to support that side of the industry, and because I can afford to do so. But don't assume that the degree of happiness/suffering portrayed on screen is at all reflective of what's actually going on for the performers IRL. There is no "self evident" here.