My friends and I were discussing Charlie Sheen, and one of them questioned why porn performers needed to escort on the side. Another friend commented that in 2011 - if a female performer does not escort or dance on side that barely make a living. I was wondering what everyone thought. I know the money is porn is touch but is it really that rough, if a female performer is working a few days on one larger parody films you think she would get a nice payday. Example : Superman (Batman was sucess - I would think Andy San Dimas had a nice payday) or Sex Files II (sex files made a lot of money, I would think that K Kane made a really good payday on it since she had to work several days as an actress) I could be wrong just wondering?
I think that todays porn performer has to get income from more than just pornography becase there simply isn't enough work to go around. There are too many performers all fighting for the same part. Look at the number of studios filming porn now versus what it was just a couple of years ago. If a girl films 2 scenes per week at 800$ per scene than technically she earned 6400$ for that month. Now you deduct her agenst fee. I'd be tempted to say 10% but somehow I think he gets more so lets use 15%. Then there's her AIM test or whatever it is now called which I think is easily above 100$. So that original 6400$ gross is now really around 5300$ and she hasn't bought food, gas for a car, paid her telephone bill, internet and cable TV or rent for a modest apartment somewhere in LA. Of course the same thing could be said of almost every struggling actor in Hollywood. most of them work at a couple of jobs hoping to get their big break and most will always be struggling actors hoping to get their big break.
There is not enough porn work for every girl to live off especially if you live an expensive lifestyle with cars, a house, drugs, kids, and so on to pay for. So they make additional income from working strip clubs, posing for magazines, income from running their own websites, and escorting. Some stars strip at local clubs and some of the bigger names can go on tour as feature dancers. But strip clubs are probably not bringing in that much money right now either. Magazines are dead and have been replaced by online web porn. Lot of girls have their own websites but not all of them actually run the site themselves. Producing content for your own site can be lucrative for some (e.g. Pinky, Belladonna) but in general it just helps to flood the market with more mediocre content, all chasing the same dollars. In general most stars cannot generate enough income from a website. Lot of the girls are escorting now to bring in money. This is not a shock since lot of pornstars were escorting BEFORE they started doing porn. In fact some entered porn in order to charge higher rates. This is not a new thing. Even stars from the 70s (e.g. Aunt Peg, Samantha Fox, Kelly Nichols, Annie Sprinkle, ..) all used to work off camera as prostitutes. This is not a new thing. Hey doing porn is just prostituting on camera. Even some of the top of the line girls escort under-the-radar . Several Playboy playmates are escorting also. I remember some girls living with Hugh Hefner were later busted for escorting UTR for some rich wall street guys. I remember Stacy Valentine said she was escorting UTR in some porn documentary. If the price is right I think all of them will do it. Why not? They are already fucking for money. Checkout TER and you can see reviews for pornstar escorts. Look at sites like eros-guide.com and bodymiracle.com to see which stars are openly available. Most stars figure escorting is easier money. You get $500-1500 on average for less than one hour of work. The average john will pop after only 10-15 minutes of humping. They don't have huge horse cocks like Lex Steele or Julian and won't pound her to death. Girls can also do less extreme acts refusing anal and facials etc. Escorting is not like being on a porn set where the director may have them getting pounded for 2 hours and waiting around another 2-3 hours for set changes, lighting, makeup, people showing up late, photos. etc. Some of the superstars can get much more money. It's funny to look at the evolution of adult entertainment. Back in the old days a really good looking woman could make a great living just dancing alone or posing in magazines like Playboy -- no escorting required. Those days seem to be gone or they won't last for long.
Its more like 2x a month. Girls that are shooting 2x week are the exception not the rule anymore. A couple of years ago I had clients that were shooting 5x week. Now only the biggest names or the freshest newest girl can do a couple scenes a week. Most of the women in the industry havent worked in months. And there are female performers with names that arent working. Zambi is right on with his analysis. I just want to add that the feature dancing market and escort market are also drying up. Pornstar escorting rates are way down because the mainstream escorts, actresses & Playboy Playmates, have cut their rates in half.
^I agree with you. I was using the best case scenario to prove that it was still hard to make money with 2 porn gigs a week. I can't imagine how hard it must be to make a living with 2 shoots a month.
Certain performers "get hot" for periods of time when they can earn a lot of cash. Even in a downturn. Andy's versatility pays off for her in the current parody/vanilla climate. But I look at some of these gals coming in now, and all I can figure is they're scoring a few gigs so they can bill porn star rates on their escort tours. 'Cuz there sure ain't any stardom awaiting. Porno Dan must be in hog heaven. Edited by - skronker on 3/8/2011 12:07:27 AM
Some stars do not escort as such but do "privates" with lets call them fans they have met at various conferences and via the social networking sites. It is in fact quite amazing the well-known stars that supplement their income by doing these "privates" I dont blame them at all for taking advantage of this business opportunity and imagine there must be innumerable fans out there that are prepared to pay a tidy sum for a once off "date" with the pornstars they admire.
You have to work on the net and don't forget we all have to pay for food, gas, phone internet (to watch this) tv etc and rent. So using your example their monthly income is $5,300 Probably more than a checkout girl or a bus driver ?
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Rosco Fuji Deactivated User
On the licking stick, Mr. Magic Dick! 3309 Posts 2/09
You also have to look at how long the career is for the average porn starlet. Some hang on for years, but this is the exception, isn't it? Reading this forum it almost seems like NFL running backs have a longer average career than female porn stars. While they're "hot" who can blame them for making the most of it by dancing, escorting, photo shoots, privates, whatever. Like the old saying "make hay while the sun shines," porn actresses need to make as much as they can while they're still viable. Oh, and that $5300 -- no one mentioned taxes, which will probably take another 30% off of that number. When you think about how expensive it is to live in California (so I'm told), the actual discretionary income doesn't seem all that good to me. It almost makes you wonder why anyone would bother getting into this industry.
Be worth every penny if they made 10k a month. They have no health or retirement benefits. A stop and go work schedule, that often has early or late shoots, with a lot of travel time with no compensation. Follow a few of these girls on Twitter, it's more about guts than glamour.
[/quote] You have to work on the net and don't forget we all have to pay for food, gas, phone internet (to watch this) tv etc and rent. So using your example their monthly income is $5,300 Probably more than a checkout girl or a bus driver ? [/quote] Don't forget that we are talking about porn performers. A checkout girl or bus driver works 5 or more days a week, probably gets a payckeck deposted in their bank account and have a different lifestyle than a porn girl. It's quite possible that the lifestyle of a porn girl is not one that is conducive to saving your pennies for a rainy day.
If its tough for the women imagine how much harder it is for the male pornstars who are already making less money per scene. At least the women have some options. But nobody gives a shit about the male stars. ;-)
I never did the escort thing or the dancing thing, and when the opportunity for a steady paycheck came up this last month, you bet your ass I took it. Before that, two shoots a month would have been stellar, and you're not making $800 a scene, it's closer to $400 or $500. The most work I was able to get in one go was something like 5 scenes in 4 days, and that was in NYC, and one of those was just nude modeling. Most of my income in the year I did porn came from modeling and photography workshops in the Chicago/Milwaukee area. Some of that was fetish based, like smoking, superheroes, mud pits and even CPR, but it all helped. During slow months I picked up work as a seamstress. As for the "spongy boyfriend", there's about the only thing I "get" about Bree Olson's latest moves. Mine is a freelance writer with a steady gig. Mind you, that isn't a million dollar profession, but he pulled in 3 times what I did last year, and it was slow for him to. Charlie Sheen's money, to Bree at least, has to be looking pretty sweet. So, no, most of the girls aren't making a ton on the porn, and the ones that don't have another skill to fall back on, might be falling on their backs. Tug's right: these days it's more about guts than glamor. It's about getting as big a payoff as possible in the shortest amount of time, but a lot of us are starting to see that there isn't a light at the end of the tunnel, and we aren't getting younger, so steady, if lower, paycheck it is.
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Solar4 Deactivated User
183 Posts 10/10
Posted - Mar 11 2011 : 6:15AM
Agreed. The cost of living in LA is quite high, and these girls if you read their tweets, are focused on purses, vacations, expensive cars, expensive clothes, regular shopping trips, in some cases suitcase pimps, expensive shoes and jewelry, always eating out, and pricey apartments/houses which cut into whatever their monthly income happens to be. And given that most of these girls aren't exactly saving their money, an income of $5300/month, which is quite good in most parts of the country, is a paltry sum for them considering their poor saving habits as they spend their money as soon as they make it. Then you have to look at other factors such as that only a small percentage of girls in the industry get most of the work and it's easy to understand why most women in the industry escort. Edited by - Solar4 on 3/11/2011 6:28:46 AM
I think most girls at least make a decent living out of shooting scenes. I can't comment on their ability to save their money, but it does seem like some of them do enjoy a high standard of living. An average porn career is usually a couple of years so I totally understand the girls trying to make as much money as possible feature dancing/stripping, selling clips/personal items, having amazon wishlists, doing camshows etc etc and as long as fans as willing to pay, those who do escort, are gonna make a decent living out of that too.
Sounds like to me porn is going to turn into women with full time mainstream jobs do porn on the side. Hey , might make their porn careers last longer and not get "burned out". Just my uneducated observation. ----Dread----
I think that majority of girls don't make a decent living shooting porn at the moment. There are too many girls and not enough gigs to go around and I suspect that studios have started offering less money for most sex scenes. I think many of the girls income goes to what most girls income normally do. Clothes, shoes and various accessories. the main difference is that poren girls shop are more expensive shops that your average girl and therefore pay significantly more money of these things. I'm not so sure that porn girls that escort make that much money. Yeah you'll get your porn fan willing to pay some of the going rates but we are still in a recession so there can't be that many rich porn fans willing to pay 800$ for a quickie with his favorite porn star.
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Solar4 Deactivated User
183 Posts 10/10
Posted - Mar 12 2011 : 12:50PM
Yeah most girls aren't making a decent living, and when you look at the average agency (e.g, LA Direct) they have around 90 girls on their roster and only around 1/4-1/3 of those girls are getting most of the work, and it's the same at most agencies. It's similar to the Pareto Principle, where 20% of the girls get 80% of the work in the industry.