Trigger warning:
Most people think they have a general idea of what goes on in the porn industry—who the performers are, what they look like, and what kinds of things they do when the camera’s on. It seems like it would be pretty basic and straightforward, right?
Well, that’s only partially true. The reality is that the average person knows about the porn industry from a perspective that’s sexier and more glamorous than true-to-life.
This r/AskReddit thread asking “What are some dark secrets about the porn industry?” got almost 13,000 comments, and some of them are people unearthing their experiences or someone they know’s experiences with porn that are honestly concerning. We already covered one disturbing response to the thread with over 17,000 upvotes from a former porn site programmer, but here, we’ll share a few more stories that other people added.
Note that we can’t fully fact-check each story, but we’ll share some of the less grisly comments from that thread here and you can see for yourself. Also note that the original Reddit thread contains very graphic, disturbing content.
And remember—no matter what stories were shared on that Reddit thread, research still shows the end product of porn is harmful to consumers, relationships, and society. No, not all porn is produced with exploitation or trafficking, but it’s a fact that some is, and the consumer has no verifiable way of knowing what’s consensual and what isn’t.
Here are some of the most disturbing or sobering responses from 11 different Reddit users. We’ve edited for grammar or censored some language:
1. “Back in high school, this girl dropped out and became a porn actress. Her first video came out while we were still in high school (~16 y/o). It was produced by a well-known company. They had to have known her real age. Either way it’s gross. The video is still up and she’s made many more in the years after… Sometimes if they look really young, they are.”
2. “A friend of mine worked as one of those chat girls on websites where you pay per message to ‘chat with hot girls.’ He’s a guy.”
3. “I was watching a camgirl live-streaming when she was swatted by the Russian police. I later found out that she was in a house filled with camgirls live-streaming in different rooms; kind of like an online brothel, and there was a different streamer in each room. I believe it was Russian-mob controlled or something.”
4. “When I was 19, I was pretty much strapped for cash in a new city, and took whatever gigs I could. One was as a driver for a ‘video agency.’ I basically picked girls up from the airport and took them to their shoot. Some of these girls were scared s—less, and I’d tell them, ‘I can always tell them I couldn’t find you, and you can go home right now.’ After the third girl asked me to pull over, I stopped. That s— was hard on me as a teenager.”
5. “In my less than 10,000 people town, a young girl was being held captive at a drug dealer’s house. She came to him for drugs, he would give them to her, but one day she went missing. They found her months later so drugged out of her mind that she had no idea what was going on. They kept her in a room with one of those cams on for extra cash, and kept her drugged up so she didn’t say anything or do anything that could get them caught. Really sad, and yes, she was underage.”
6. “I had a relative who worked with women and children protection services, they told me how dirt poor parents force their kids to have e-sex with foreigners to have money they usually spend on gambling.”
7. “A friend of mine was in a couple of films. She was a heavy drug user and barely remembers her time in it. And now she lives with constant anxiety of people finding out. She also said makeup on some of the girls is just to hide needle marks… She has had lots of counseling and is running an excellent fruit and veg store now.”
8. “Most major porn sites are owned by 1 company called MindGeek.” (FTND note: it is true that a company called MindGeek owns the majority of what people understand to be the mainstream porn industry, and MindGeek is currently being sued by multiple survivors of child sex trafficking for reportedly hosting and profiting from videos of their exploitation.)
9. “A former porn actress came and spoke in a class I was taking in law school about the regulation of vice. She said that the brief scenes after gangbangs where the actresses say things like, ‘Yes I loved, I would do it again,’ aren’t legitimate. The actresses aren’t paid until they say that, even if it’s not how they feel.” (FTND note: we have covered the issue of untruthful exit interviews here.)
10. “I am married to a former adult movie actress. I will never spill her secrets, but she still has nightmares from the industry. She still has stalkers from the short time she was in, too.”
11. And this story, in particular, stood out to us (edited for length):
“There’s an entire pipeline in the porn industry that mirrors human trafficking, to be completely honest.
I live in a city where porn production is legal. I was approached once to be on set and basically serve as a sort of house mom on the set in order to make the girls feel more comfortable. It was an easy gig, I would’ve seen a cool $5-7k for doing really little. Honestly, I was going to do it. I was really pro-porn back then….now, not so much.
I learned HOW these girls were sourced. A huge part of it was that the production company had connections to drug dealers that would often target and groom barely legal drug users that are clearly troubled and forming a dependency. Through this dependency, they’re exploited. When I mean barely legal, I mean HIGHSCHOOLERS that just turned 18.
The porn being produced was violent. It was one of those studios that focused on rough sex. They needed another woman on set to console and comfort these girls because they were tired of them having panic attacks on set following it.
I was about to take on the job, I was like 24 at the time and that type of easy money sounded great, but I’m sure I would’ve been groomed into doing this just as well. I was so f—ing disgusted that my entire outlook on porn changed completely.”
The exploitative porn industry
By sharing these stories, our intent is not to convince you that all porn videos on the internet involve trafficking. But undoubtedly, many do, probably more than you’d expect, and there’s no way to tell what is exploitative and what isn’t.
For all of what graphic porn on mainstream sites shows today, consider what it doesn’t show—the things that are edited out or that happen when the cameras aren’t rolling. These stories give us a look behind the curtain and see the true reality of the porn industry.
There were many other responses on that Reddit thread that talked about other disturbing issues in the porn industry: infections on set, sex trafficking situations, injuries, etc. All of them reveal a simple yet often-ignored fact: the porn industry isn’t as glamorous, safe, or sexy as many people believe it to be.
These experiences, overall, give personal witness to what many survivors and anti-exploitation advocates have been saying for years about the porn industry. It’s time we listen, and consider the facts before consuming.
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