Notes from the Porn Set
Repost from old blog, 8/7/2007
So I’m back from vacation on the west coast, the highlight of which was visiting, for one day, the set of Joe Gage’s latest porn film. It was a really positive experience. I stuck with the crew, which were filming five performers doing an anal scene and a watersports scene.
So there was the porn set, with hot sex for sure, but also camera angle changes and dead camera batteries and airplanes occasionally ruining the sound overhead. After filming was over I was asked – had the fantasy of porn been ruined for me? The illusion shattered? To which I honestly replied “no.” I mean, I’ve seen “Boogie Nights.” Watching any porn, I’m always aware of the glimpses of reality I can catch beyond the frame.
Maybe it’s just me, but I find it hard to believe anybody holds illusions about porn at this point. Which isn’t to say I don’t enjoy it – quite the contrary. It’s just that the will of fantasy is powerful, and will easily squelch anything that gets in the way of its enjoyment. I mean, just cause Mel Gibson is a homophobic asshole doesn’t make his “Lethal Weapon”-era ass any less hot, right? Even though you have no chance of ever meeting the guy (and if you did manage to proposition him he’d probably beat you up), the exuberance of your fantasy life still, somehow, gets your face between his buttcheeks.
But anyway.
The set was homey and everyone was friendly and welcoming. On breaks we ate cherries and Nutella sandwiches and watched “South Park.” I didn’t get an erection, except for chubbing up a little when I sat down and read the script. Shows where my interests lie. I got a certain frisson from tiny details – the way a performer slapped the sides of someone’s shaved head, for instance. But, ultimately, the proceedings were stripped of any fantasy element for me to latch on to (they’d filmed the dialogue the day before).
So why didn’t I get a charge from simply seeing real, live people have sex with each other right in front of me? After all, the experience presented me with my first view, since entering a monogamous relationship, of a real live naked man standing in front of me with an erection (who wasn’t my boyfriend). But still – it was real yet unreal.
Beforehand, I assumed I’d be more interested in watching the actual performers than viewing them on the monitors, but as the scene progressed I found myself watching the monitors more, becoming more interested in the fantasy that they represented than the actuality of the work that was taking place. I was looking at it as a writer, as if the scene was a story, focusing in on elements that worked for me, positioning the performers as characters in my mind, props.
Joe was nice enough to even entertain one of my suggestions (you can read about it on Joe’s new, improved blog). Will it work to the scene’s advantage in the end? Who the fuck knows. Certainly not me. At any rate, I sort of like the idea of manipulating people to my own perverted ends – and I only make that sound diabolical in jest. Directing seems like another side to what I’m already doing (albeit a side that I have no experience with whatsoever). I think that’s the biggest revelation I took away from the experience.
7 Comments
Aug 11, 2007 @ 23:51:00
Responding more to fictional representation than actual, I think, is a major identifying trait of a creative person. The point of art is to improve upon nature; all artist’s are hopelessly dissatisfied on some level with real life and therefore use fantasy to make life adhere to one’s personal aesthetic, which is why I consider pornography to be, at least definitionally, the truest art form.
Regarding this I’m left wondering what the inadequacies of actual sex are and can actual sex ever fulfill the promises of fantasy?
Aug 12, 2007 @ 13:21:00
It’s important to place value in both fantasy and reality, and doubly important to know the boundaries of both. Fantasies (dreams, art, beauty) enrich our lives, but they are also treacherous. I think that MOST people are hopelessly dissatisfied with real life – thinking their lives would improve if they moved to another city, or their relationship would be better if they were with somebody else, etc.
Can actual sex fulfill the promises of fantasy? Sometimes. While one will never be able to fuck a Tom of Finland drawing, one does have the ability to bring aspects of their fantasy life into the bedroom. I think many people don’t allow themselves to fantasize with their partners – to pretend they are somebody else, for instance. But for a relationship to remain healthy, it has to allow for this.
I’m bursting with stuff to say on this subject, and not just in regard to sex. I spent the majority of my life believing that others were living more fully than me. My main source of inspiration is the yearning I feel when I imagine others are having amazing sex, or living free, ecstatic lives. The most significant point in my development (as an artist and as a person) so far has been to acknowledge that this is just fantasy, and to accept and love myself and my life for what it is. Only then was I able to relax, to focus less on living the fantasy, and more on writing about it.
Aug 12, 2007 @ 23:15:00
“I think that MOST people are hopelessly dissatisfied with real life…”
I should have specified more clearly. You can be dissatisfied in many ways and not all of them drive artistic persuits, but all artists seem to be dissatisfied with life when measured against their aesthetic standard. Beauty (which you list as and element of fantasy) is a result of meaning. Artists make things more beautiful essentially by making them more meaningful. Pornographers do the same thing, only instead of beauty, they impart eroticism. If you describe a man giving another a blow job in straightfoward objective detail, it’s doubtful it’ll be arousing, but if you make the giver a straight guy blowing his friend in a moment of inebriate weakness, then the meaning of the act is one of trangression and therefore potentially very erotic.
“Only then was I able to relax, to focus less on living the fantasy, and more on writing about it.”
I’ve no doubt you chose the saner path, but I regard fantasy (and the art that results) in the opposite way. I see it as a reproach to the common and accessible life available to me and a challenge to live as meaningfully as possible. I see art as facilitating that goal and so am not worried that “living the fantasy” will be a hindrance to my creativity. But then I might just be a lot more naive than you are 😉
Aug 20, 2007 @ 03:28:00
I feel like this comment is so shallow considering the others, but this sounds like a blast. 🙂
Aug 20, 2007 @ 16:43:00
Thanks Dwight; even though I took the “cold shower” approach with this blog, it really was an awesome experience!!
Feb 16, 2012 @ 21:38:38
Ha. Before I realized this was an old post (with old comments) I was taken aback at seeing another “Dwight” had commented. But, alas, it was me. 🙂
Feb 17, 2012 @ 13:46:02
reasons why you’re one of my heroes:
” The most significant point in my development (as an artist and as a person) so far has been to acknowledge that this is just fantasy, and to accept and love myself and my life for what it is. Only then was I able to relax, to focus less on living the fantasy, and more on writing about it.”
seriously, i think you deserve a lot more recognition than you currently have. your observations are fascinating and totally true. i’m glad i’m not the only one that feels that pornography and erotica are more than valid art forms, but perhaps the center of aesthetics. yay brains!