Double Feature: "Hot Girls Wanted" and "Kink."

There’s a fierce debate within the feminist community as to whether pornography is exploitative, woman-hating, and offensive, or a tool to express one’s sexuality. From this ruckus have come two documentaries, each made by women, each showcasing a different side of pornography’s vast reach. While the subjects differ, especially in content, each is expressing a completely different opinion.

Courtesy of Netflix and Two to Tangle Productions

Hot Girls Wanted (2015) dir. Jill Bauer, Ronna Gradus

From producer Rashida Jones, and directors Jill Bauer and Ronna Gradus, comes the true story of the lives of amateur porn stars living in Miami, Florida. As the documentary explains, legislation has been enacted in California that requires male performers wear condoms. Because people are turned off by this preventative measure, Miami has been a hotbed for porn production. The film follows the lives of amateur porn stars, girls who enter the business, get $800 a shoot, and leave the business all in a couple of months.

The film looks at a particular house, where a male producer exploits impressionable girls, sending them to shoots and reaping a commission though he does little, if anything, to earn it. The girls all live together, talk about their profession’s drawbacks, and tell us the realities of how the business affects their lives. The main character of the documentary is newbie Tressa, aka Stella May. We see her enter a relationship, try to tell her parents about the extent of her fall down the rabbit hole, and becoming tired with the semantics of being a porn star.

The film drives home the point that these girls come from all over the country, often without opportunity or guidance, and fall into porn to make good money. Most of the girls in the film left the business shortly after and try to make it in the real world, obviously scarred by the entire experience. While it doesn’t shame the girls for what they have done, it does shame the practices of the people who create these films. It’s most opinionated about the films containing violence against women, facial abuse films, and other exploitative material. While these instances can be turn-ons for many people, when done responsibly, the film only shows instances of women doing things they hate, for money. Little of this shows women who enjoy their bodies, or have a say in what they do on camera.

Overall the film is very sobering, and shows that amateur porn sites are the most corrupt, disgusting, and exploitative of the porn sites available. While consent exists between performers, there’s an icky, manipulative vibe to the entire film that makes you want to take a shower, then go down to Florida and rescue the lot of them like Peter Pan with his Lost Boys.

Courtesy of James Franco, Christina Voros, and kink.com

Kink (2013) dir. Christina A. Voros

In a more positive piece of documentary filmmaking, producer James Franco and director Christina Voros present a film showcasing one of the more famous online porn sites for BDSM. Kink. com is one of the largest online sites for this kind of pornography, housed in a former armory in San Francisco, one of the more liberal cities for this particular fetish.

The film showcases this site and its participants by showing the behind the scenes nature of production. It becomes clear from the beginning that the directors are most concerned with the safety and consent of its performers. Trying to unburden itself from the stereotypes that amateur porn perpetuates, Kink is always most concerned with pleasure and experimentation. Watching these scenes unfold, and the people involved try to maneuver around what they are comfortable doing versus what the director wants, it seems legitimate that this is a much safer, tolerant environment than others in the porn community.

The film does a decent job of humanizing its performers, much like “Hot Girls,” but instead of showcasing their humanity to contrast their dire circumstances, Voros does it to eliminate the stigma of the BDSM community at large. The entire film seems to be a venture to show the world that their community, their site, and their performers are real people, and yes they enjoy getting spat on, and their hair pulled. One performer leaves college to pursue a career in porn, another is a mother to three kids who doesn’t know how she will tell them in the future. It would have been nice to have talked to more performers, including Princess Donna, one of the people in charge of the armory.

Though the film tries to humanize the community, and make BDSM more accessible, it doesn’t shy away from taking shots at the porn community at large for creating unrealistic, often exploitative content that features a lack of female pleasure and pure consent. It’s strange to say, but the performers in this film, even as they are being tied up, yelled at, and physically embattled, were better respected than the girls in “Hot Girls Wanted.”

Between these two films I found that each represented the diversity in the pornography industry. While I don’t have a straight answer as to how I view pornography from a feminist point of view, I can say that for other people it’s a clear choice. Consent is important, and its absence feeds into stereotypes that proliferate porn culture. If you’re curious, you will either find yourself sated or heartbroken by these films, each its own representation of an underground industry.