SECRETS TO MAKING EROTICA
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8 Surprising Secrets That Go Into Making Porn
May 2, 2016
You always hear about how porn doesn’t represent real-life sex, but you might be surprised by the extent to which it’s different. A lot of bizarre, hilarious, and, frankly, impressive feats go into its creation. Here are a few aspects of porn shoots that you would probably never think of.
1. They have a method for dealing with periods.
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The female star in the last scene you watched may very well have had a sponge up her vagina. According to Penthouse Pet of the Year Layla Sin, who also directs two to three times weekly, that’s what they do when someone’s on her period. They’ll switch it out every half hour or so to make sure no blood leaks out, she said. According to Lina Cole, a porn actress currently on sabbatical, they use “those triangular wedge makeup sponges.” Yup, the same ones you see on drugstore shelves.
2. The bodily fluids you see in stills are probably just lube.
According to Anikka Albrite, director and AVN Female Performer of the Year, the bodily fluids in videos are usually real, but the still photos that seem to show ejaculate on someone’s face or body usually just use liquid penicillin or lube. Cole said it’s sometimes a mix of penicillin and Cetaphil lotion.
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3. Everything’s timed, down to the orgasms.
According to Sin, scripts get super specific, laying out exactly when each action happens. For example, they might say something like, “you’re going to do a strip tease, and then two minutes into the scene, you’re going to take your top off, then after a minute, you’re going to take your bottom off, then after three minutes, you’re going to start masturbating.” Sometimes, even the orgasms are timed, she said. She tries to create a setting where her performers will have real ones, but sometimes, she admits, “You have to fake it. You cannot come, like, 18 times.” Albrite agreed that she always tries to have a real orgasm but will fake one if she has to “for the viewers,” who “like to see the woman have pleasure.”
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4. A lot of prep goes into anal scenes.
“On camera, it looks completely seamless and perfect, but there’s actually a lot of preparation that goes into preparing for anal sex,” said Albrite. “The girls will control their diets a day or two before the anal scene to clean everything out, and a lot of the time, they’ll do an enema the night before and the morning of to make sure everything is clean.” Who ever said being a porn star was easy?
5. They all share their STD test results beforehand.
There’s an unspoken rule that performers all have to show one another their STD test results before shooting a scene so everyone can rest assured that their co-stars are negative. “It’s like a gentlemen’s agreement between the performers,” said Albrite. Interestingly, under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, directors and producers aren’t allowed to see the results themselves.
6. Performers sometimes have their lines in front of them.When she’s directing, Sin will sometimes make actors’ jobs easier by holding up a whiteboard by the camera and writing lines and instructions as the scene is being filmed. For example, she might write “take your panties off” and erase it and then write a line. Cole said her lines were usually improvised, but still, there’s a chance the dialogue in the last video you watched was written with dry-erase marker.
7. Makeup is used all over the body.According to AVN Male Performer of the Year and award-winning director Mick Blue, performers will often hide their tattoos with makeup. Since everything’s showing, they’ve got to have all fronts covered (literally).
8. Fluffers aren’t actually a thing (usually).Some rumors say there are “fluffers” on porn sets who go down on male stars to get them, er, camera-ready. Over the course of his 15-year career, though, Blue has only seen this once, and it was “by accident.” Wait, what? “We were shooting a video scene with five guys and one girl, and an agent came by who was representing some girls, and the director asked the girls if they were looking to make extra money,” he explained. But in general, “Fluffers are not a real thing. It would be nice, but it’s not happening.” Cole agreed but added the disclaimer, “the girl usually had to keep the guy hard during breaks in filming.” Porn stars really are never off duty.
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Suzannah Weiss is a writer, certified sex educator, sex/love coach, and sex expert whose work has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and more. You can find her on Twitter (@suzannahweiss), Instagram (@weisssuzannah), or at www.suzannahweiss.com.
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