Hot Girls Wanted – A disturbing porn documentary

I came across the Hot Girls Wanted documentary one night recently on Netflix. Having exhausted Orange in the New Black season three and everything else on Netflix I was desperate for something to watch. At the time I wasn’t aware that the documentary was shot by the beautiful Rashida Jones of The Office fame. The rise in the interest of young girls wanting to pursue a “career” in amateur porn seems to arise from the fascination with the instant sex-tape to celebrity status achieved by such “celebrities” such as Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian

Violence towards women

What I wasn’t at all aware of was the fact that violence towards women makes up a huge portion of amateur porn, the demand for which is only increasing. I’ve watched porn before (Briana Banks) and I’ve seen the disturbing sidebar ads: Punishtube, Young and Abused (WTF?) Apparently abuse porn and forced oral sex is a way that young “actresses” can quickly shoot to fame. I haven’t myself watched anything that falls under the category of abuse porn nor do I have any desire to, but kudos to the Prime Minister of England in pledging to step of the fight against extreme violence in pornography. I can’t imagine that the watching of such materials wouldn’t ever inspire those with a violent predisposition to act upon their desires whereas these desires might might otherwise remain dormant.

I’ve been fascinated by the lives of porn stars and I’ve read several biographies of household names such as Jenna Jameson and Tera Patrick. Both became highly “respected” in their industries and made their way into a bit of mainstream media. Both ended up marrying men who took advantage of their fame and used their fame to themselves become male pornstars. These men then used their new pornstar title to  explain to their wives that their careers now required them to sleep with other women. It seems that the pattern is simply a never-ending cycle of abuse. The abuse seems to start somewhere in the childhood, is than  propagated while being a pornstar ( rationalized away as empowerment) and continuing in an emotionally abusive relationship. It is extremely rare for a porn star to have a fruitful porn career and then settle down for a happy and wholesome, fulfilling life with their husband and kids. Not that it can’t be done but the odds are highly against you. Young girls need to remember that Kim Kardashian’s sex tape was with her boyfriend and she was not hired to perform in a porn transaction.

I don’t believe that the average of 18 year old girl is capable of deciding whether or not she should pursue a porn career. At the age of 18 I was certainly extremely naive and pretty damn stupid. There should be many more laws calling for much more regulation in the amateur porn industry. For example before  any girl who is under the age of 21 can enter into a contractual agreement to engage in porn, it should be mandatory that she be fully aware of exactly what will be taking place with no additional surprises suddenly taking place on set.  Frequently girls are coerced and tricked and manipulated into doing things that they did not agree to. A photo shoot goes horribly wrong and the young girl, now in a vulnerable and extremely unsafe situation  is manipulated into performing acts that she would otherwise never do.  In the “Hot Girls Wanted” documentary aspiring porn actress Ava reflects on a past shoot which ended badly. Ava was flown to a shoot where she was surprised by the fact that she would be performing a forced blowjob, something that was never mentioned in advance. She related to this experience to that of a rape victim, the experience of being blatantly taken advantage of but somehow still questioning your own actions as if you were to blame. How are we allowing this to happen?