On the contrary, I think most people would find it entirely acceptable for a child who may lack the talent or intelligence for other professions to become a sewage worker or garbage collector, but not a sex worker. We see sex work as different for multiple reasons: concerns about health and safety; fear of social condemnation and psychological harm; job insecurity (unlike the unionized jobs of garbage and sewer worker, where an employee is guaranteed to be paid more as he gets older and to get a pension when he retires).

As for the gender discriminatory terminology, the majority of live-action pornography is marketed toward and consumed by men. The amount of “lesbian” porn that’s meant to appeal to actual lesbians is laughably small compared the amount that’s oriented toward men. Yes, it’s making a generalization about the nature of the porn industry that misses the minority of women who are part of the demand, but so do discussions of sexual assault that assume men to be the predators and women the victims, or of domestic violence that does the same.

If women are paid more, it’s probably partly because the industry actually requires higher standards of appearance for women, whereas ugly men are welcome as long as they’re well endowed (Ron Jeremy).

The books by prostitutes mostly seem to be by the high-end hookers, like Belle de Jour or Tracy Quan, rather than by street workers. Women who command hundreds of dollars per hour probably have a different perspective on the business than women who work for $20 a job.

I saw this documentary on HBO about the porn industry and it said:

1) Porn industry is controlled and managed to a large extent by women.

2) Women earn many times more than men for a role.

Does the porn industry discriminate against men or are women compensated more because their roles are inherently more degrading or is there a smaller supply of female porn actors than male porno star wannabes or is it because porn customers are mostly men?

Does this qualify as gender based discrimination?

we could have a movie on pornography that doesn’t have anything to do with real life.

Commenting on Mahesh Bhatt’s rants or anyone in the Hindi movie industry is a waste of time. This is one of the better articles I’ve read on this blog (I liked your style, didn’t dig the content though). Nice to have you @ SM.

nah!!! The tagline should be – “Kalyug has another excuse to show porn trade”

Oh please call it Malyug, Chalyug but not Shyam Benegal-Shashi Kapoor’s original “Kalyug”…sigh.

IMO, India has this business of secret cameras in hotel rooms etc precisely because porn is illegal.

How does the average man reconcile his enjoyment of porn with his desire not to have his daughter ever go into it?

The same way an average woman reconciles her enjoyment of porn with her desire not to have her son ever go into it!

If you have to ask rhetorical questions, please make them gender neutral.

How does the average person reconcile his/her flushing the toilet or generating two bags of garbage every week with his/her desire not to have his/her child to become a sewage worker or garbage collector?

M. Nam

I’ve wondered that, too. I worry about how it affects both men and women. Because it does.

I also wonder about the people who go into the business, whether they supposedly choose to or not.