The Whole Foods Transformation of Porn

by Calico Rudasill, Sssh.com

 [ed. In a previous post about Whole Foods, I promised a follow up specific to porn.  Calico jumps into the fray with this. ~ Coleen]
While reading a press release the other day about the announcement of the dates for the 2014 Feminist Porn Conference, I got to thinking about the meat I buy at Whole Foods – you know, the premium cuts that are organic, air-chilled, antibiotic-free, free range, asbestos-free and all that other feel-good marketing crap that makes modern, Prius-driving hippies swoon with self-satisfied thoughts about how they’re saving the planet every time they cook up a batch of responsibly farmed buffalo wings.

Read on…

Specifically, I got to thinking about news like Tristan Taormino saying she’s going to change over to mandating the use of condoms in her porn movies, the creation of a new ‘ethical porn’ trade association that’s rumored to be looming, and the ongoing debate about whether Ron Jeremy should shave his shoulders before having sex with young newcomers to the industry, so they can have a fighting chance of enjoying their new job at least a little before deciding to renounce sex altogether and give themselves over to Jesus.

Anyway, the more I thought about all of this “ethical porn” talk, the sillier it sounded to me. It’s not that I think the idea of being ethical is silly, in itself, just that an ethical debate between the producer of Gag That Bitch With Your Cock Until She Pukes and the brain trust behind Devastated Anuses Volume 41 isn’t exactly Thomas Aquinas talking normative vs. applied ethics with Samuel Bailey.

Don’t get me wrong: I think it would be lovely if every porn company treated its people well, not just the on-camera performers, but their employees and staffs, too. It’s just that if we start down the road of deciding in detailed fashion what sort of sex acts, titles, plot lines and character types are acceptable and which aren’t, porn is going to wind up even more rote, stilted and dull than it already is!

I call the risk here the “Whole Foods-ification” of porn: in an attempt to make our product more palatable and politically acceptable to the increasingly touchy-feely American market, we might end up policing ourselves into producing one long episode of Judging Amy, only with bigger fake tits and better dialogue.

Soon, nobody will refer to “midget porn” anymore, because that will be too offensive for the tender sensibilities of the group-hugging, porn DVD package-recycling nookie nannies who set the New Rules of Porn for the rest of us. It will be called “Little People Erotica” from here on out, and – tragically – there won’t be a single “carpet-munching munchkin” reference, ever again.

Instead of reading about “filthy, cum-covered semen sluts,” you’ll see companies touting their “cage-free sex scholars” who educate whilst they titillate.

We’ve already got organic lubricant, soon we’ll have a five-step pornstar welfare rating so people can know at a glance whether the chick in the gangbang video they are considering ever had to live in a studio apartment in Van Nuys or use public transportation to get to the set.

Getting serious for a second here, porn ethics are simple: everybody must be an adult, legally and mentally; don’t make anybody do anything they don’t want to do; pay people what you have promised to pay, when you promised to pay it; don’t steal from customers, performers, or industry peers, and live up to all your mission-critical promises – especially ones like “I promise to bathe before showing up to receive a rimjob on camera.”

To drill any further into what comprises “porn ethics” is to invite the all-consuming demon of subjectivity to run roughshod over anyone who disagrees, especially those who derive pleasure from treatment that might seem unthinkable to the majority who set the rules.

There is one thing that I can hang my hat on here, though, one specific Whole Foods pledge that I know we’ll never see from the porn industry. Given pornstar STD infection rates, I think it’s safe to say we won’t see Antibiotic-Free Studs for sale in aisle 69, any time soon.