I help people talk about sex and money. I adore these subjects because they’re both wrapped in shame, secrecy and bad advice. Opening the door and letting a little sunlight in can help all of us unwind, breathe, look our fears in the eye and choose how to move forward with agency.
Pornography sits squarely in the intersection of sex and money. In the United States alone, the adult website industry is estimated to be a USD$775 million market, growing at a rate of 13.8 percent year over year. In that sense, porn is serious business. And like with any other industry, some companies are known for paying and treating people well, while others are known to be abusive workplaces.
The Free Speech Coalition (FSC) is a trade association whose mission is “to protect the rights and freedoms of both the workers and businesses in the adult industry.” As the the industry relations advocate at FSC, queer performer Lotus Lain spends her days helping newcomers to the industry navigate careers in porn. Xtra reached out to Lain to talk about what would-be performers need to know, how to thrive over the long term and why audiences would feel better about themselves if they actually paid for their porn.
Tell me about your role with the Free Speech Coalition.
I got started with the Free Speech Coalition in 2017. I pitched the executive director on a role to help fill in the gaps from the performer and production community outside of political campaigns. Historically, the FSC was most active during No to Prop 60 [a California law that nearly passed in 2016, which would have required porn performers to use condoms during shoots] and similar things that affected our community. When those things died down, there was no real connection. So I pitched the idea of an industry relations advocate to be the liaison between what people are hearing and experiencing on actual production sets and the board. What are people’s concerns with regard to safety, testing and all of that good stuff?
Now we’re doing more with the INSPIRE program, which I launched to help industry newcomers know what they’re going to need to successfully navigate the adult industry. It stands for Industry Newcomer Support Program: It Really Exists. We recognized that there is an information gap between successful performers and performers who could’ve been more successful, or who could’ve left the industry with a more positive experience. The INSPIRE program informs people of their rights—and their responsibilities—as workers.
The adult industry, like other industries, is shifting toward independent creators. You are your own business, and you need to know how to manage your own business things. At FSC, we are the industry’s trade organization, not the industry’s HR department. There is no HR department. So if you have concerns and you’re not speaking up and advocating for yourself, there’s not much anyone can do besides further inform you so you can be better prepared in the future. We’re just trying to close the gaps and inform people so they know how to protect themselves.
What rights do porn performers have?
APAC—the Adult Performer Advisory Committee—has a bill of rights in a bullet point format. But to keep it simple, I would just say informed consent: You have the right to know what you’re getting into and what your responsibilities are upfront before you agree to anything.
Yes. And it sounds like the way you’re phrasing it, it’s informed consent about all of the parts: What does consent mean, what’s the legal stuff, what’s the accounting stuff, what’s actually happening on set.
Yeah, because that’s what gets people into trouble. They may be informed by recruiters that if they sign up for this site, they’re going to make $10,000. But then they realize they signed an exclusive contract, and now they’re stuck on this site and can’t go elsewhere, and that’s not informed.
Same thing when you get to set. You go expecting it’s going to be a simple boy/girl scene, but then it turns into a boy/girl anal scene, and you’re not prepared. There are so many different ways that consent is violated: financially, emotionally, physically. So the major thing that people need to be aware of is informed consent across the board in all areas of interaction.
What’s an example of a common misconception that people have about their responsibilities?
I would say to read your contract and know what you’re signing. If you signed a contract and then later you say, “This person is doing me wrong, because they put this video everywhere,” but you signed the contract that let them have the rights to put it everywhere, sure, it seems f’d up, but you agreed to it. It’s your responsibility to know what you’re signing and getting into. It’s also your own responsibility to ask questions. There’s no boss taking care of you. Even with agents, they’re not on set saying, “Hey, make sure you ask your co-worker if he has a valid test and verify it.”
We try to do all these things and set people up for success, but if a performer isn’t advocating for themselves, being aware, being present, being engaged and involved in their own business—those are responsibilities you have to uphold. It’s not to put the blame on anybody. It can be hard to push back if you’re a newcomer who is scared to rock the boat or if you really need the paycheque to make rent, for example. But you have to advocate for yourself because it’s not like you have an HR department to consult.
So if there’s no HR, what’s the difference between working with a major studio versus going independent?
Say someone’s trying to do the major studio track. The best bet would be to get with an agency. But independent performers can work with top production studios, too, if they build their own name and following enough to catch attention, if they network with the right people who will give them the right email addresses.
If you don’t care about the major studio network, you can just be independent. People are starting their own MiniVids, OnlyFans and PornHub accounts, so they’re not dependent on agencies or studios. There are even people who never touch the top production studio side of the industry and stay independent the whole time—and they’ve been working for nine or 10 years.
That said, if you are going to try to chase the mainstream track, it’s still mainstream. It’s going to be ruthless. They’re going to be super critical about your body or any differences or uniqueness you think is cool. Porn is still the entertainment business.
How do independent versus studio performers make money?
On the independent content creator track, you get paid in the long run. But upfront, you’re paying for your own testing, shoot location, iPhone, camera equipment, whatever you need. Down the line, as you sell your videos and clips, that’s how you make your money back.
In the major studio system, you’re not responsible for the costs of the shoot, and you get paid either same day or, if they’re a really corporate super studio, in two weeks on their payroll. Some studios do payroll every 30 days, so you might wait a month to get paid. One of your responsibilities as a performer is to be aware of your income flow.
It sounds like you basically need to think about yourself as a business.
Yes, yes, yes. You need to obtain your own insurance (rental, life, health, etc.), set aside your own money so that when tax season comes you can pay it, file your own taxes and all those business owner things.
We try to at least get people aware of the fact that no one else is doing this for you. We’re just like any other artists. Even the mainstream modelling industry has versions of OnlyFans that subvert agents, so models can get straight bookings direct to the model agency.
What does a thriving career in the industry look like over the long term?
The ability to know how to take breaks and still have money, whether that funding is coming from passive income or because you have another skill. When you take your breaks, you’re able to maintain yourself without falling into a desperate hole of needing to survive off of GoFundMes or whatever else.
And that all comes back to your responsibilities. How have you managed your business? Did you pay your taxes? Did you save your money? Did you build enough nest eggs in the different websites where you could generate money off of those upsells on an ongoing basis?
I don’t think enough sex workers seek out financial planning because we’re real scared about people judging our job or not giving the right advice or just scamming us because of our job, and then we don’t have anyone to report that exploitation to.
Through the FSC INSPIRE page, I found Lola Davina’s Thriving in Sex Work books, and they’re so good. They address that shame and talk very candidly about financial and emotional resilience over the long term.
Yeah, those books are really good.
I thought, every person needs to read this, whether they work in the adult industry or not, because all of the stuff about managing fear and shame and working through your own issues.
The cool thing about this industry is it’s helped me with so many emotions and conflicting messages we all get in the world and in life. I actually think that any other job I would have had would have only encouraged those insecurities further. This industry actually freed me of them.
Say more about that. That’s really cool.
When we try to avoid talking about things or hide things, we create shame. There’s so much shame about body differences. You’re on a porn set and you’re about to get into an orgy or just a regular one-on-one scene with someone that may not be your ideal “type,” but your job is still to sell the ideal. You realize, “Wow, this person was able to give me pleasure and make me feel awesome.”
“Being exposed to different kinds of bodies and seeing your counterparts and their fanship, you realize, ‘Wow, every type of body has fans.’”
It gives you the opportunity to experience pleasure with bodies that, on your own, you may not seek out. Even being exposed to different kinds of bodies and seeing your counterparts and their fanship, you realize, “Wow, every type of body has fans.”
Even the shame that I had about my body, there are people who love these things. Here are my fans making me money off these things that I was about to plastic surgery away because I bought into the ideas other people were putting in my head.
That’s so interesting because earlier, you talked about how ruthless and judgmental the mainstream studio performer track can be.
There are mainstream performers who look literally perfect and have the biggest insecurities. Maybe it’s because they’ve crafted such an image and a persona that they always have to look like that. I’ve crafted an image and a persona that is flexible, and that helps me feel personally free from previous insecurities.
Just know that as a performer, whatever you buy into, you’re going to be held into it. With mainstream performers, their audience bought into them being the perfect image, and once they have real body changes, then it’s going to be harder on them than someone else.
Maybe another performer would say, “I’ll eat this bag of M&Ms even though I know I have to work out.” They’ll eat two or three and then say, “Oh, shit, I need to work out.” And I’m not saying this in a bad way. It’s the same way with athletes. They don’t drink and party and do fun stuff that people their age would normally do. They’re focused.
Allison Moon, in her interview about Getting It, reminded the rest of us that performers are athletes—people who specifically train for this.
Yeah, totally, especially when it comes to performers who do hardcore anal scenes. You have to clean out and take care of your digestive system. So it’s a lot. You really are tuned into everything your body is going through.
Your body is your instrument in a more profound way than a lot of people.
That’s a good way of putting it. Any little dink or dent or scratch, they’re immediately polishing it and bumping it out. Whereas someone else like myself or independent content creators, we have more flexibility to become whatever shape we’re going to become.
Love it. So if you could give people who watch queer porn an overview of the industry, share what’s out there and how to explore, what would you tell them?
I understand a lot of young people and a lot of queer people may have financial barriers. However, I will say it like this because it’s the same thing in relation to any other food desert. There could be a table full of food, but it’s all candy. That’s freetube sites: Always there, always abundant, colourful, flashy, easy. Why wouldn’t you just eat that? It’s fun, it makes you feel good, it’s sweet, it hits the spot.
But eventually you realize, oh, if I give a little more effort, go to the grocery store, fill a fridge with food, make that food, eat that food, wow, am I nourished. And that food is the porn that you’re paying for in searching and researching and finding in other ways, outside the freetube sites.
That’s beautiful. If somebody doesn’t even know where to go to find nourishing porn, where would you direct them?
At this point there are a lot of articles in mainstream gay and indie queer publications that talk about where to find different kinds of porn. I would start with those simple searches, and follow writers like Sophie Saint Thomas and EJ Dickson.
It’s really a question of research. I wish there was one central place to find all the good stuff. But the best way of finding it is to know what you’re looking for, type that out, see what voices are repeatedly in that scene and listen to those voices for recommendations.
Let’s talk about why people should pay for porn.
Why should you pay for it? Well, I mean, why should anyone pay you for your labour? There are thousands of people behind this labour of entertainment that has been created just for you. And I mean, if you don’t want it to go away forever, you should pay for it.
I always hear people complaining that they see too much “incest porn.” Why aren’t you paying for something else? It’s funny to me people think there’s so much incest porn on the internet. I already automatically know what kind of watcher they are—they must just watch freetube sites. I literally never see any incest porn, but that’s because I subscribed to the stuff I want to see.
It’s simple. You pay for cable because you’re sick of the antenna networks. You pay for HBO because you’re sick of cable. The less you pay, the lower the quality is. So you’re basically watching—what is it?—cable access network porn, as opposed to the blockbusters you really want access to. I mean, I hope more people realize this and are willing to pay for porn.
I hope so too. It’s absurd. You wouldn’t walk into a movie theatre and expect to not pay for a ticket.
Right? Exactly. There’s potential, if people realize that complaining into the void doesn’t solve their problems.
So let’s say someone found work they love and they’re going to go subscribe. How can somebody from the outside know if those performers and staff are actually being treated well?
Research. Twitter is where performers talk about companies. They’ll say, “Oh, this company is so awesome, they always treat me well and they’re the only ones I’ll work for.” Or for me, it’s kink.com’s little videos at the end of each clip that show the performers in normal mode with robes on, laughing and talking about how much fun they had.
If performers are actually excited to tweet about working with someone or a certain company, that’s a good sign. Likewise, you will see people repeatedly talking about people that are offensive or that aren’t that great to work with. Especially if the comments are along the lines of, “Oh, that’s not the first time,” that might be an alarm to look out for. It’s difficult because these things are randomly on Twitter. There’s no central place where we say Company A is awesome and Company B sucks.
Right. There’s not a certified B corporation or an organic food seal.
Those kinds of things have been discussed before, but the industry isn’t centralized. So for now, your best bet is to watch what performers are happy to promote or who they’re happy to work with.
What do you want to see next in the industry?
I mean, I love all of the wild freedom that we have. I would really love it if people could learn to be more respectful. A lot of the problems in our world boil down to communication. People need to be able to communicate better, respect people’s boundaries better and be more aware of where to look for the right information to help them be successful. There are so many performers who still don’t know about the FSC INSPIRE page, even though we tweet about it every week.
I’ll see or hear about someone who, after the fact, didn’t know that they didn’t have to do something—say, a particular sex act on set. And then they feel taken advantage of. One of the sad things is people are so eager to get on set and fuck and make that first cheque from a sex act. But I wish people, when they enter this industry, no matter how young they are or how old they are or whatever jobs or situations they came from before, would really do their best to constantly research and inform themselves.
Is there anything you’d love to see in queer porn in particular?
I would like queer porn from small indie and feminist studios to take itself a bit more seriously. It doesn’t always have to be a ragtag, thrown-together-in-the-back-of-the-garage-type production. If you want to save your tax refund this year to start investing in better equipment, or a location rental to give us some stuff with a theme or a plot, that would be cool.
“I love my soft queers, but so many people think that that’s how you express queer sex. Can we not be raunchy? I would like more raunch.”
Also, queer porn does not have to be thoughtful and soft. You know, I’m queer and I don’t always enjoy thoughtful, soft sex. I mean, I love my soft queers, but so many people think that that’s how you express queer sex. Can we not be raunchy? I would like more raunch. Much more of even appropriating some of the acts that are normalized in straight porn, but doing them in queer porn.
I want to see a world where terms such as “tattooed” or “babe” could be applied to both you and I. I would like to see categories on porn sites being expanded and racist, transphobic terms being pushed out. I think that would really help everyone—but especially the younger generation—feel represented, feel like their sexuality belongs in the world.
Anything else?
Performers are people, too. What a lot of viewers don’t realize is that sometimes your favourite star is going through shit. And when I say going through shit, it’s heavy, depressive, hardcore shit they don’t put out in public. They may be dealing with a stalker or an ex-husband trying to sue them and take their kids away because they do porn.
And to performers: If there are trolls, don’t fucking interact with them. Do not talk to them. I don’t read the comments. I don’t care. The people I care about are my actual paying fans on my page saying cool, nice, supportive, positive stuff to me. When the troll somehow finds his way onto my page and says some fucked up shit, all I do is delete it, block it and I thrive. So that’s my mantra to everybody: delete, block and thrive.
That’s probably useful advice for anyone on the internet. It should be a Post-it Note on our computers: delete, block, thrive.
Yeah. And that’s how you maintain your happiness and longevity. Don’t argue with those people—if you only feed into the people that feed into your positivity, it’ll keep happening.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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