Asian Porn

I wasn't going to post this article because it is so damn long, but I'll let the reader decide if they want to read it. It's about the depiction of Asian males in pornography.

The reason I'm posting it, however, is that I've had an interesting back and forth with Cindy about the article.

Here goes:

The author starts out complaining about hollywood images colonizing the world, and how this affects those colonized ideas about sexuality...fair enough, we've heard all this before, so what's the solution? What's the alternative? Should we ban american films from being shown? Of course not. People want to be entertained and there are plenty of exciting things happening in non-hollywood cinema around the world, especially hong kong, mexico, american independent film, and iran. So i can't get too wrapped up in the argument, although there is probably some validity to it. But gimme a break, it's not like pre-hollywood distribution to foreign markets there was all this egalitarian, utopian sexual practices around the world...i'd venture to guess that "hollywood" values of sexuality, while mostly white, are probably more equal and empowering to women than the way men treat women in most countries throughout the world. Read about how women are treated in saudi arabia and tell me they wouldn't benefit from a good dose of JLo or Julia Roberts.

But he makes some interesting points later:

1. Non-existent representation of asian men in straight porn. And the almost exclusive use of asian men as the "catcher" ie the bitch, punk, under, etc in gay porn. It's true and it's weird. I've said it for a long time - asian men have it the worst. I almost never hear of girls digging on specifically asian guys. Asian girls like asian guys, sometimes. but never do white, black, latina, jewish, any of those type of chicks ever express particular interest in the physical attributes of asian men. It sucks, what can i say.
So I don't know what to say other than, it's rough for asian dudes.

At the same time, I know plenty of cool asian dudes that do pretty damn well with the ladies, so again it goes back to the individual vs. the group.

2. The inverted power structure in straight porn...it's a women's world. Women command the power in the porn industry - they get paid way more and therefore weild the power. Men are secondary, almost a piece of furniture in porn. I saw some documentary about john holmes a couple years ago and they talked about why he was the perfect male porn star - huge penis, with a big dorky personality. Porn tends to depict men with a dorky exterior, but with enormous sexual prowess underneath. This plays into the male porno watcher's fantasy - he's a dork, usually, and especially in the moment when he's generally watching porn. he dreams of himself having an abornally large member and all the girls going crazy over it. I think it's interesting, not necessarily good or bad - sure it objectifies men, but i've never really understood the problem with objectification, to be honest. I have no problem if girls what to objectify me and sexually fantasize about me. Shit, i'd be flattered. I guess i would have a little bit of a problem if a guy was fantasizing about me, though...not exactly sure why, probably just some homophobia.

Cindy's response:

The inverted power structure of porn is merely in representation. Although this is increasingly changing, men are ultimately the ones that have all the power in porn. They produce and direct it and have largest say in the salaries of their employees. An interesting, but still problematic doc that you might be interested in watching is "sex: the anabel chong story". you can get it from netflix. Its about this chinese-singaporean girl who enters the adult entertainment industry. Her calling card was doing the largest gang bang at the time. At one point in the movie she's trying to negotiate her wages, thinking shes a big star and should get top billing. In the end she has no clout at all. There are many other interesting aspects of the movie and i think its worthwhile to watch. It also brings up issues of the etiquette of doc filmmaking.

My Response: Hmmmm...you think the directors and producers wield the power in porn? i couldn't name a single porn director or producer, but can name a ton of porn actors and actresses. People watch porn to see certain performers - even more so than in regular film. In hollywood, I think stars just as much wield power as directors and producers -- see Mel Gibson, Tom Cruise, Julia Roberts. Sure, there are powerful directors, Spielberg, and producers, Bruckheimer, but just look at Entertainment's list of power players - many of them are stars. Although ostensibly directors tell actors what to do and producers tell directors what to do - that doesn't mean they wield the power. There's this great book, Easy Riders and Raging Bulls all about 70s American filmmakers and on certain projects, it's director-centric, but on others, the actor has a lot of power because he's the one that's saleable - I'm thinking of Warren Beatty.

I don't think any porn producer or director tells Jenna Jamison what to do. You can't have a Jenna film without Jenna, so ultimately she's the asset, not the producer and not the director.
The example of the girl you gave - she's not a personality. She's just performing a particularly crazy act and like any employee, probably getting the shaft. But I guarantee porn personalities that are valuable in and of themselves, ie Jenna J, Kobe Tai, etc, they command big bucks and can tell producers to go to hell if they want to.

Cindy: I can see your point but for the most part it doesn't work like that. Within porn there are only a few who can command the big bucks. The rest are just peons in the game.

My final response: Fair enough, but I think Cindy's final point is a more general comment about porn actors in general getting "the shaft" and not specific to female pornography stars.