Do you remember the first time you watched a porn film that you really loved? Something that wasn’t just hot, but made you feel good when you watched it? Something that had you smiling just as much as panting? I bet I can guess what was special about it… not the details of who performed, what kind of fetishes may have been explored, or even the genders of the actors, but something more important and consistent across good quality porn – authenticity.
Now think about the last time you found yourself bored watching a porn film. A video you thought would be super hot, and for all intents and purposes the ideas of it are, but something’s just… not doing it for you. I bet I can guess why for this too – authenticity.
A porn film without authentic chemistry may as well be a bad infomercial – someone is trying to sell you something and you’re just not buying it. And let’s be honest here, porn IS a sales industry, and as creators, we want folks to be buying. So as a baseline starting point, authenticity is only going to help. Putting marketability aside, however, there are other reasons why you might choose to put authenticity first in your content.
When I’m creating something, either in front of or behind the camera, it is fundamental to my work that authentic exploration of sexuality is presented because I believe in the power of porn to transform people’s relationships with sex, their bodies, and their relationships. Porn is a powerful medium to tell stories about human sexuality and the responsibility of that work is meaningful.
Do you remember the first time you watched a porn film that you really loved? Something that wasn’t just hot, but made you feel good when you watched it?
Porn is more than something that gets us off. For many people it is sex education… and while a big part of that is due to lack of comprehensive sex education in schools, it is still a reality. As a creator, knowing that porn is used as sex education was a big part of me getting my start. I wanted to be a part of creating more good and authentic porn that showed the vast diversity of sex. I didn’t see a lot of porn that felt reflective of my experiences with sex. When I did discover porn that felt authentic to me for the first time, I learned things I wanted to try, saw bodies like mine depicted as attractive, and generally was just in awe of how much hotter it was! What messages are being conveyed through the scene you have created?
Creating authentic porn is an essential part of the narrative about healthy human sexuality. It can look a lot of different ways, but what it comes down to is participant experience. How do the performers feel? Safe, invested, excited, turned on, comfortable, or consensually uncomfortable... I’m not invested in saying what exact combination of feelings is “right,” but I do want to know how the performers are feeling and if it feels “right” to them.
When I’m performing, my “right” combination of feelings is: safety, trust, respect, and excitement. Turned on is definitely a bonus, but not actually what I personally need for porn to feel authentic. I think when many people consider the concept of authentic porn, they’re imagining genuine, “organic” arousal… it’s similar to when you talk to people who claim to be supportive of sex workers, but would never hire one themselves. When you ask why, it’s almost always some version of, “I want it to be authentic, and it’s not if someone is paid to be with me.” Why did this become such a popularly held belief when it comes to sex, when it’s not a standard we hold any other working professional to? People don’t go around saying, “I’m not going to go to a doctor because they’re not authentically interested in my wellbeing if I don’t pay them.” We can believe getting paid for labor is appropriate for this helping profession, but not one that involves deep vulnerability, intimacy, and care?
Creating authentic porn is an essential part of the narrative about healthy human sexuality.
When I think of authenticity in porn, it does not come down to arousal or even pleasure. Those may be a nice part of an authentic porn film, but not fundamental. For me, authenticity as a performer comes down to my investment in the creation of the scene. If I’m genuinely interested in creating, that is an authentic desire, even if I’m not turned on… though sometimes the excitement of creating something fun and interesting that I know someone else will get off to is enough to then turn me on!
Authenticity also has another dimension to it, which is accurate representation. This can be about representation of what a sex act looks like between people or representation of oneself. For example, as a trans performer, my gender presentation is something that fluctuates, and when I am presenting myself on camera in a way that feels real and validating to my gender, it is inherently authentic porn.
One of my favorite ways to lean into authenticity in porn though is through kink and fetish. When it comes to solo scenes, I almost exclusively create content that I personally find interesting. In some ways this can result in better marketability, because authenticity is such a key ingredient to people enjoying your work. If you are genuinely into leather, then your excitement will shine through and it will be a connective experience for viewers who feel similarly. It also helps with sustainability in an industry that demands a lot. To try and create in ways that don’t feel authentic to you can be far more challenging, exhausting, and feel downright icky. In an industry that is maligned for taking away worker’s free will and pushing them to do things they don’t want, we reject this narrative when we choose our own authentic sexual expression in our content creation. When we choose to center our own genuine desires and excitement in porn, we choose ourselves over capitalism. Authenticity in porn is inherently radical, political, and feminist.
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