After my dismissal from Evil Angel, in 2012, I moved to New York City. This was an extremely disorienting time. I missed my job and especially my friends at work, but as life must go on, I needed to reinvent myself in the Big Apple. (As a matter of fact, I had worked briefly in the summer of 2005 filming porn in NYC. Too many milk enema movies — couldn’t do it. I didn’t have the stomach for it!)
One lazy Sunday afternoon, I picked up the latest copy of the Village Voice. I didn’t realize how much one particular article would impact me. I perused the cover story about Hunter Moore, and was both shocked and intrigued. Back then, Hunter was the unrepentant founder of Is Anyone Up?, the prototype of revenge porn websites.
Revenge porn, according to Wikipedia, is the distribution of sexually explicit images or videos of individuals without their consent. When I worked in adult video, I’d been responsible for verifying 2257 documents that made sure everyone was legally allowed to be in the movie: i.e., 18 years or older with signed consent forms. 18 US Code § 2257 outlines the stringent record-keeping requirement on producers of sexually explicit materials. So from my job’s perspective, how could somebody even release pictures/videos without 2257 paperwork? It was a Brave Nude World! These new kids on the lawn of the adult business live by different laws and codes that I couldn’t comprehend. I’m just an old cyberfart.
Now, I don’t want to waste time defending revenge porn, because how can you? But what I find fascinating are the motives behind its production, distribution and consumption. I kept hearing about men releasing those pictures to humiliate, intimidate and destroy the lives of their former exs or random women. Some of them even excused it, claiming justice for nasty breakups and rejections. It’s a pathetic, bitchass reasoning.
But some consumers of revenge porn crave the stuff. Mainstream porn is meant to be consumed by as many people as possible, but often, revenge porn pictures/videos were created by a woman who took private images of herself naked, meant to be consumed by one particular individual as an enduring gift. After the end of their relationship, the man violates that trust and uses it as a weapon to hurt her. Men who don’t have relationships like that, or receive pictures in that way, crave the artifacts as evidence. It’s closest they’ll ever get to that kind of intimacy, actually quite sad and hollow.
For me, these guys should count themselves lucky to have received such intimate pictures. People break up all the time! Just remember the good part, and move on — it’s not that difficult, folks. This whole revenge porn business is a symptom of internet loneliness. In the beginning, the internet was meant to connect people all over the world. Ushering in a new, happy world order. I don’t believe in it; I’m a skeptic.
If you want emotional fulfillment, turn off your Goodman phone and get away from porn. For one brief moment, I viewed the revenge porn phenomenon as an innovative specialty, and pondered transitioning into a new product. But in the end, it helped me to move completely away from the adult business. Like the enema videos, I just don’t have the goddamn stomach for it. Neither should you!