Focus on pornography with Netflix

Saturday's Netflix & chill - Loris S. Musumeci

With the two documentaries by directors Jill Bauer, Ronna Gradus and Raschida Jones, who joined the duo after the first film, Netflix gives us the opportunity to take a look at pornography. More than a look, it's a zoom. A raw zoom, especially in the first film, that's quite embarrassing, if not very embarrassing. Hot Girls Wanted (2015) and Hot Girls Wanted: Turned On (2017) immerse themselves in the world of porn. If the second installment, Turned On, The first focuses on a very specific aspect of pornography. And it's to the first film that we devote our attention for a zoomed-in, zoomed-out look.

When it was released in 2015, the documentary had its wave of indignant critics: too raw, too explicit in what is shown on screen to be able to talk about pornography without itself playing the game. The film has also been criticized for a certain complacency towards this milieu. While certain scenes feature violence that some consider excessive, the denunciatory aspect of the script has been perceived by others as too weak. This explains the somewhat different stance adopted by the trio for the sequel.

In reality, the allegedly exaggerated violence is quite relative. I'd even go so far as to say that it's not shocking, and respects the basic rules of propriety. The denunciation, seen as not severe enough, is actually based on a nuance that comes directly from the testimony of the girls followed in the documentary. Hot Girls Wanted places his camera in front of girls who engage in so-called «pro-amateur» porn. It falls somewhere between amateur and professional porn. While the latter, which is in drastic decline, is performed in fixed settings, with actors and directors specialized in the field (like Rocco Siffredi, who also acts in non-pornographic films), amateur porn is usually done at home, without too many resources, often between two people in a relationship, who are excited by filming each other for others to watch online. Well, to each his own...

Pro-amateur porn

Pro-amateur porn, on the other hand, is performed by amateurs, but in more or less professional settings. Thus, the girls we follow in the documentary are absolutely normal, Most of them still live with their parents; many are still studying, or have a job that doesn't necessarily fulfill their needs. And above all, they're very young. The pro-amateur is looking for the youngest girls possible: almost all of them are between eighteen and twenty. Recruiters post classified ads on the Internet promising them everything from easy money to sex with attractive boys. Why not give it a go?

For the five girls in the documentary, the early days are quite exciting. They put aside their little worries of conscience, and took advantage of the opportunity to travel from one end of the United States to the other, to go out, to drink champagne, to have fun... to discover new things. They discover a whole world; they enjoy it. Sea, sex and sun and money also, many money. At least, that's how they see it for the first few weeks. While they can easily earn nine hundred dollars per day of filming, filming days gradually become scarce for many of them. After a month, if the girl doesn't have enough subscribers on social networks or the videos in which she appears aren't profitable enough, it's all over.

Otherwise, the average is three months, after which we want new faces. The lucky ones can go on for up to a year. Very few have the strength to keep going. Because roles and activities deteriorate violently with each successive shoot. All it takes is for a girl to miss a sex scene with a handsome young man in her second week, and by the third week she finds herself playing the young girl who's madly in love with her father's best friend, with a disgusting actor who's well into his sixties. But that's not the worst of it...

Because in the fourth week, we're going to move the girl in question to another film set, specializing in rape, one of the most popular categories on Pornhub and consort. And there's something really beautiful here! A nineteen-year-old girl, who has the number of followers the highest of the five girls, finds herself on a set having to play «a dirty whore», in her words. In front of the camera, she is gleefully insulted, then slapped, only to perform forced fellatio, until she vomits, and the rest is history. I've heard that pornography consumers get a hard-on in the face of this. The young woman then testifies in a tone that is at once desperate, on the verge of tears, and at the same time dejected. «You get used to it,» she says, her gaze low.

Nuance, at the risk of being self-indulgent

Since the five girls we follow unevenly all live with Ridley, their recruiter, we also see their friendship. Their joy at the table, on outings, drinking together, having fun, supporting each other. Even the recruiter is sympathetic, understanding and takes Ridley's side. its girls whenever necessary. It was on this point that critics found the documentary self-indulgent.

What's more, two of these five girls never complain about their work. It's working for them, they're doing a succession of shoots seen as privileged, And they say they love their work. One eighteen-year-old blonde becomes almost touching when she tells the camera how she takes her acting to heart, over and above her performances of screams and naughty gestures. She goes to the hairdresser and the make-up artist, to really become a character; she even trains to get into her psychology. However, it's hard to see how videos that don't even have a script can make a difference. psychology to this or that character.

No judgement

But documentaries don't judge. It looks. It listens to what the five girls have to say. Particularly Tressa, who shows herself very divided between her activity in porn «which allowed me to take my freedom and earn money quickly» and her deep shame, her boyfriend's discomfort, her mother's suffering - while her father, to whom she is very close, knows nothing, she doesn't have the strength to tell him - the physical consequences, including a vaginal inflammation for which she ended up in hospital. Tressa opens up completely to the directors: even though she still has a desire to continue in porn, she can't take it anymore after only a few months. Then her tears speak for themselves.

Zoom in on porn that humiliates teenage girls, hurts them and destroys them, even if we must bear in mind that some of them claim to be totally satisfied. Respecting these young women also means taking into account what they say, without trying to attach one's own ideological discourse to it at all costs. Zoom in on porn that destroys both those who make it and those who watch it - I sadly know something about that.

Cheer up, guys!

In fact, the consumer is the big absentee in this first documentary. The filmmakers preferred to focus on figures and statistics to support the girls' testimony. It all depends on how you look at the documentary, but in reality, these figures don't really affect me. To say that clicks on such and such a porn site are higher than clicks on Amazon, Netflix and the like doesn't affect me. In a pinch, you might say: yes, but so what? And then we'll even say to ourselves that this is normal, perhaps even reassuring: porn sites are the most consulted, even by children. So pornography isn't as bad as it's made out to be, it's normal, it's commonplace...

Nevertheless, this zoom in on the issue allows us to see behind the scenes of this unhealthy industry, while daring once and for all to look away from the screen for a moment and take a look at ourselves in the face of pornography. Is what I'm doing normal? Am I proud of myself? Do I love myself when I see myself masturbating in front of two - or more - copulating people whose screams are more akin to horror movies than sex?

No, let's not look away. Guys, let's take a serious look at ourselves for a moment: is what we're doing worthy of us? Let no one feel judged. There's no court in my words, and I'd be in no position to lecture anyone. The author of this article writes from suffering, from an awareness of the inhumanity of porn. Not easy to write, but necessary.

So, guys, let's take a good look at ourselves, and see ourselves for what we really are: men, who deserve much more than this, who are worth much more than this. It's wishful thinking to hope for an end to the greatest alienation of this century, online pornography, but we have to keep hoping and fighting. So that young girls in need of money no longer have to vomit in front of the camera under the effects of fellatio, and so that men finally consider themselves with respect and love. Love is the key. Love of others and love of ourselves, so that pornography stops enslaving us. So that sexuality can be exercised with dignity and true enjoyment.

Write to the author: loris.musumeci@leregardlibre.com

Photo credits: © Netflix