Paperchase writes on www.xxxporntalk.com: Since Christian is ending his blog in a couple of weeks I thought we should have a thread to ask him any questions we think he should address before he closes this window into his life.
My question.
1) Is it correct that the average porn chick only lasts 6 or 7 months in the industry? Please provide an estimate of the number of months?
2) During this time period what would be a good estimate of the number of scenes she would shoot per week, and her gross revenue per week?
3) If she survives more then say, 6-7 months what would her weekly income typically drop to, assuming she is no longer “the new thing?”
4) For the gross earnings in #2, what would be the typical fixed expenses, and what would that produce as a net income?
Your comments on the economics of porn would be interesting to see on your blog.
Christian of www.christiansingstheblues.com responds:
the scenarios that you are trying to find are not the same as they once were. Here is my blog entry where I detail the current situation for girls in this business
http://cwians.typepad.com/christian_sings_the_blues/2008/09/naughty-bookwor.html
actually, here is what I wrote…..
The current business climate for girls in this business is horrendous. This is the Great Depression for girls. The pace that new girls are showing up for work here in LA has totally eroded the workload of the medium to longer tenured girls, and the death of DVDs and the slowdown of the industry has finished them off almost completely. Lets do a girl tally of the agencies:
LA Direct Models – 123
Gold Star Modeling -106
Lisa Ann’s Talent Management – 82
A List Talent – 79
Type 9 Models – 78
Adult Talent Managers – 63
Foxxx Modeling – 44
It Models – 22
Spiegler Girls – 21
And remember this isn’t counting the numerous smaller agents that also have some girls out there as well (Metro Talent Management, Adult Faces, Fresh Talent Management, Double Exposure, Valley Babes, My Life in LA, and a few others).
In this current climate, there can’t be more than 125 jobs TOTAL for all agents combined per day. And that’s probably much too high. So each day there are less than 25 percent of girls in the business working. That means at least 450-500 girls are doing nothing on any given day. Let’s add some facts into this as well.
1. New girls work all the time because every company needs to shoot them one time for their updates. This is a law in our business.
2. The old law that doing more sex acts (anal, DP, creampie, IR, etc) isn’t NEARLY as marketable as it one was for girls because most of the DVD companies that specialized in shooting those things are gone. The days of anyone being the “anal queen” of porn, or something close to that are long gone. Why? Because half the time you would be seeing her doing a vaginal scene on 15 different websites that don’t give a shit about anal.
The most marketable girls these days are the ones that stand out for doing something unique or having a unique look. Audrey Bitoni, Carmella Bing, Phoenix Marie, Sunshine Seiber, Shyla Stylez, Missy Stone, and Bree Olson are all good examples of this. Just being young doesn’t help, having big natural boobs doesn’t help, doing it all doesn’t help, the facts are that you have to be hot in the eyes of directors/producers, and you have to resonate with their site members.
Where does this leave the majority of the girls in the business? Well, for the last 5-6 months or so, there has been an increasing number of girls unhappy with their workload and/or not working enough to pay basic bills. Most girls blame their agents first, and we have seen a huge increase in the number of girls who hop from agent to agent.
This is a huge problem for these girls. First of all, the majority of them aren’t going to leave the business and go get a 9-5 job. After doing scenes for a week, making 800-1000 bucks immediately, there is no fucking way any of them are going back to flipping burgers at Wendy’s for 5.85 an hour and working their butts off. Some of the older girls might have job skills that will allow them to re-enter the workforce, but the lure of easy money and an easy lifestyle is very hard to break. They all love driving their Beamers, Mercedes, and Lexus convertibles. It’s no fun to work your ass off for a year in order to afford a Ford Focus. This is LA!
So again, let’s face facts, the majority of girls turn to escorting/hooking to supplement their depleted scene workload. The fans are out there and willing to pay good money to spend time with them. For better or worse, the vast majority of girls in the business can be bought. Am I against this? Not really. I think most girls know the risks out there, and act accordingly. Put yourself in their shoes, they have sex regularly already, whats the big deal about doing it for cash, behind closed doors, and with a condom (hopefully)? I got news for you, there is big money to be made in New York City. The only problem I have with escorting is that none of them pay taxes on the cash they make, and that is going to get them in trouble down the line. Part of being fiscally responsible is being able to see 3 years into the future, and not just 3 months.
Some of the more industrious girls get a directing gig, or they get their own websites off the ground and running (Penny Flame, Puma Swede, Nikki Benz, and Eva Angelina).
It just sucks to hear every girl that has been in the business for more than 3 months talking about not working, thinking about changing agents, trying to find work……it’s fucking depressing. And I don’t blame the agents at all, it’s not their job to do anything except aggressively and vigorously try to get each girl on their roster as much work as possible. And of course every agent does this, they have to, because they only make money when their girls work! I just think new girls need to understand that this business has ceased to be a full time job unless you have the ability to conserve, save, and understand whether or not you personally are marketable to the companies who are shooting.